STOP- This Key Knowledge has been removed from the 2020 study design
4.1.3- State of the environment in Australia
According to the Australian Department of Environment and Energy:
The key to Australia's sustainable future lies in ourselves: our attitudes towards the environment, our heritage and each other. Positive change can be achieved when people see options for improvement in their quality of life and opportunities for their children and grandchildren. This change is accelerated when public awareness is translated into political action that influences the activities of our society to care for our country. This statement recognizes our reliance on the environment for our survival. It is because of this that it is vitally important that the we closely monitor its condition, identifying any threatening processes and modifying our relationships to promote more sustainable practices. This monitoring occurs at local, state, federal and even international levels in State of the Environment (SoE) reports. These reports are produced by a range of bodies, and provide an analysis of the quality of the environment and the functioning of important environmental processes. |
This section looks at Australian State of the Environment reporting, its purpose, the key information contained within it and the framework around which the report is based.
SoE reports are produced following internationally accepted framework- the DPSIR (drivers-pressures-state-impact-response) framework but also includes discussions on resilience (whether the environment can recover), emerging risks (what impact pressures have on the environment) and environmental outlooks (how the future looks).
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