One outcome of Land & Water Australia's vision is to inform debate. Providing information on topics important to natural resource management and stimulating discussion in these areas helps to increase the understanding of these topics in the community. Our discussion papers are written by experts with the intention of informing on specialised NRM issues and stimulating debate in the field.

Land & Water Australia has commissioned a number of papers on emerging or important issues in NRM. These papers are written by experts in the field. They are not meant as a comprehensive scientific account. They are a brief description of the issue with some thoughts to stimulate discussion.  They are not intended to represent the view of Land & Water Australia.

Key questions include:

• What are the emerging issues and fields in NRM?
• What is the status of this issue in Australia?
• How can the field contribute to NRM?
• What are the possible policy/funding implications/opportunities?

Discussion papers so far completed are:

• Biotechnology and its implications for NRM in Australia
• Endocrine disrupting chemicals in the Australian environment
• Climate, energy, water: accounting for the links
  

Australasian Joint Agency Scanning Network

The Australasian Joint Agency Scanning Network (AJASN) is a whole of government approach to environmental scanning. A number of state and federal agencies from Australia and New Zealand contribute to this summary of emerging issues. Environmental scanning refers to the process of gathering and analysing information about the corporate environment. The more informal sources of information such as seminars can be better as early warning systems. The Annual Report of the AJASN was built on approximately 1500 grey and refereed media accessions in 2006. We don't list references in this report unless the gravity of a point being made is considered to need a citation. The nature of the information used means that when using the material it should be remembered that it may be speculative at times but useful in the context of discussing 'where to next?'

The AJASN Annual Report is available on request.

Contact: Louise Osborne