Turning around environmental management in Australia

The national Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network, backed by $55 million Federal Government funding, will be launched today in Brisbane.

The new network, based at The University of Queensland, is poised to help iron out the problem in environmental management of no standardisation in data monitoring and collection.

Andrew Campbell, TERN Board Chair and Land & Water Australia's former CEO, is excited about doing to ecosystem research what the standard gauge did for railway travel in Australia.

"Australia will be at the forefront of not only monitoring the environment but making rational eco-decisions based on a sound understanding of critical processes of terrestrial environmental change," he said.

"TERN's vision is for a community infrastructure for ecosystem monitoring and data collection and access - a series of facilities across Australia with the focus on active collaboration by people focused on obtaining and sharing quality, standard data.

"Such collaboration is a very different way of doing science in the terrestrial ecosystem field, but it will allow the scientists to do great science that was not conceivable before," he said.

The Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network is a collaboration of 12 Australian universities, CSIRO, the Bureau of Meteorology and Geoscience Australia.

Further information
Professor Stuart Phinn, Acting Director, TERN 0401 012 996 | Andrew Campbell, Chair, TERN Board 041 9208 923 | Sophie Baker, TERN Communication Officer, 07 3365 9097