PREFACE
This release provides environmental, economic and social information for the 5 Natural Resource Management (NRM) regions that comprise the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) catchments. The methodologies and practices used in this release will be reviewed and enhanced to produce future land accounts which will cover each State and Territory as well as specific environmental regions. For further information on environmental-economic accounting please refer to the ABS Information Paper: Towards an Integrated Environmental-Economic Account for Australia, 2010 (cat. no 4655.0.55.00).
The Land Account is part of a set of integrated environmental-economic accounts currently being developed by the ABS. Environmental-economic accounting is a method of integrating environmental data with economic and social data. The United Nations Statistics Division is leading the development of an environmental-economic accounting framework, The System of Integrated Environmental and Economic Accounting (SEEA). Where possible, this release has been produced in accordance with the SEEA and has followed previous ABS environmental-economic accounting publications utilising this system - Energy Account, Australia, 2006-07 (cat. no. 4604.0) and Water Account, Australia, 2008-09 (cat. no. 4610.0). In addition, land, timber and sub-soil assets are included on the national balance sheet contained in the Australian System of National Accounts, 2009-10 (cat. No. 5204.0).
This publication builds on the December 2009 release, Land Management Practices in the Great Barrier Reef Catchments, Final, 2008-09 (cat. no. 4619.0), which used 'land' as the framework for the statistical collection rather than the traditional business based framework. Using 'land' as the statistical unit enables data to be collected and published at finer levels of geography.
There were no new statistical collections conducted to provide data for this release. It was compiled from existing data sources from Commonwealth and State Government Agencies. Information on the sources of data and how these were used to compile this release is presented in the Explanatory Notes.
The collaboration between agencies in providing information for this release demonstrates the value of the National Statistical Service in building a rich statistical picture for a better informed Australia.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The ABS would like to thank the organisations that assisted in the preparation of this release, in particular, the Queensland Department of Environment and Resource Management (DERM), Geoscience Australia (GA), Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences (ABARES), Bureau of Meteorology (BoM), the Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency (DCCEE) and Firenorth (North Australian Fire Information).
Suggestions or comments on this release are welcomed, and should be sent to the Director, Industry and Land, Locked Bag 10, Belconnen ACT 2616 or emailed to mark.lound@abs.gov.au.
Brian Pink
Australian Statistician
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