ABSTRACT
This chapter outlines initiatives of State of the Environment Reporting to identify national and regional scale indicators of ecosystem health. The release of A Framework For Discussion On The Environment, by the federal government in March 1990 began a public dialogue on a comprehensive national environment strategy and action plan: The Green Plan. The State of the Environment Reporting program has four related initiatives: The State of the Environment (SOE) Reporting and SOE Products, Ecological Monitoring, Environmental/Ecological Indicators and National Environmental Information Network. The focus of this chapter complements SOE Reporting's efforts to develop indicators of Canada's ecosystem health and a sound ecological monitoring framework. The ecological units for national reporting purposes also serve as the planning framework for a comprehensive national ecosystem monitoring network. In practice, developing a set of indicators or measures of Canada's ecosystem health has proved to be a complicated process.
