Participants at the Australian Ecosystem Science Long-Term Plan Perth town hall meeting having their say on the future of ecosystem science in Australia. Since September 2013 over 650 people across the country have been actively involved in developing the Plan, taking the many opportunities provided to submit ideas and proposals for the future.
The development of the forthcoming Australian Ecosystem Science Long-Term Plan is just one of the many ways that TERN’s collaborative networks – a key part of our infrastructure – are enabling the Australian ecosystem science community to better deliver good science that makes sense.
This Plan sets out the vision, key directions and priority actions to underpin and sustain an effective and coordinated national ecosystem science capability that delivers meaningful outputs for science, industry, management and policy.
Our regular readers will be familiar with the development of this Plan, which has been coordinated by a range of groups working in cooperation – including TERN, the Ecological Society of Australia, and the Australian Academy of Science.
TERN’s far-reaching networks have proved invaluable in drawing together the ecosystem science community to collaboratively build the Plan. Since September 2013 over 650 people across the country have been actively involved in developing the Plan, taking the many opportunities provided to submit ideas and proposals for the future.
As a result 90 proposals for strengthening and enhancing ecosystem science have been submitted through the planning process, covering a range of topics and activities that contribute to ecosystem science and management. These proposals form the foundations of the Plan, and were the primary consideration of the writing group that prepared the draft Plan throughout April 2014.
The draft Plan has now been reviewed by a number of leading ecosystem scientists and science end-users across the country. The Steering Committee and writing group are carefully considering this feedback and revising the Plan, ahead of its eventual launch in July.
The collaborative national effort that has brought the Plan this far is a huge achievement in itself. It’s exciting to think that this is just the beginning – the Plan itself is not an endpoint, but rather the starting point to coordinate a series of longer-term activities that will strengthen and improve the delivery of ecosystem science in Australia.
We will of course keep you updated about progress to the Plan in future newsletter editions, and in the meantime you can also keep an eye on http://www.ecosystemscienceplan.org.au for the latest information.
Published in TERN newsletter May 2014
