The Commissioner for Environmental Sustainability Victoria has launched a project to demonstrate how Government and the community can build on the United Nations’ (UN) Sustainable Development frameworks to operationalise its Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) at the local level.
The Commissioner, Gillian Sparkes (pictured) said her Office was working on its State of the Marine and Coastal Environment 2021 Report, which would report against indicators aligned with SDGs.
“We know that a subset of these indicators will be particularly relevant for all coastal local management authorities, uniformly across Victoria’s coast,” Dr Sparkes said.
“Agreeing on local, uniform indicators is a priority in this reporting cycle and this month we have commenced a series of engagement activities to determine a subset of these 87 marine and coastal indicators,” she said.
Dr Sparkes said her Office delivered a workshop in May which brought together coastal managers from a range of organisations, including catchment management authorities; local councils; the Department of Environment Land Water and Planning; Parks Victoria; a range of non-Government organisations; volunteers; and community members.
The Commissioner said data from the workshop, which determined the 87 SDGs-aligned indicators, would be used in the State of the Marine and Coastal Environment 2021 Report.
“These important uniform local indicators will both inform local management practices –
areas where action can make a big difference for the environment – as well as contributing to State level reporting, without additional monitoring requirements,” she said.
“In this way we are tracking against the SDGs at a subnational level and managing against the SDGs locally.”
Dr Sparkes said her Office was adaptively managing against the SDGs with deliberate interventions instead of simply reporting against them.
Further information on the Commissioner’s approach to localising the UN’s SDGs can be accessed at this PS News link.
