Jump-starting: ENVIRONMENTAL MONITORING.

The article reports on the declining capability of Australia to systematically track changes in terrestrial ecosystem due to the human activity and climate change. The problem was driven by the shrinking university budgets, falling enrolments and entry scores for the basic sciences, agriculture and forestry, and time's toll on taxonomy's mentors and teachers. It suggests the need to do baseline monitoring targeting how fast the environment change and the need to track the agreed parameters in a repeatable way. To address the problem, the country has created the Integrated Marine Observing System (IMOS), which focus on marine research and ensures a continuous time-series monitoring.