ABSTRACT
This paper reviews the ways in which approaches to the sustainable management of forests are being implemented as part of the broader social-ecological systems in the States of Tasmania, Victoria and Western Australia. These approaches have many parallels with the principles adopted by the Convention on Biological Diversity and are instructive in understanding the issues involved in implementing ecosystem management. The term Ecosystem Approach itself is relatively new in Australia. However, it is consistent with the earlier term of ecologically sustainable forest management arising from the deliberations on Ecologically Sustainable Development by expert Working Groups in the late 1980's e.g. Ecologically Sustainable Development Working Group on Forests Use (1991) and those of the Resource Assessment Commission's (1993) ‘Forest and Timber Inquiry’.
