Australian researches are enlisting "citizen scientists" to gather information about key ecosystems to help decision makers with important environmental choices.
A report by the Academy of Science has found that there is simply not enough data to make informed decisions about how the balance between progress and environment protection should be struck.
"We would like as scientists to delay as much as possible, for as long as possible, to have as much and as complete data as possible but we understand that decisions have to be made, decisions need to be made in the present," said Professor Mark Burgman from the Australian Academy of Science.
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The report highlights four stressed eco-system across the nation, all of them with varying degrees of political sensitivity: the Murray-Darling Basin, West Australia's World Heritage-listed Ningaloo Reef, the Bowen and Surat basins in Queensland and the often-ignored urban grasslands competing with development on the outskirts of Melbourne.
These researchers aim to gather enough up-to-date, credible data to take out some of the politics surrounding environmental decision-making on the future of these crucial eco-systems and replace it with solid, scientific, rationale.
Scientists believe communities themselves can help fill the information gaps by taking advantage of omni-present mobile technology to capture, in real-time, what's happening on the ground.
"You can put a web cam in a wetland and actually see what happens when you water that wetland, you see the birds all flying in, you can see the fish coming back, you can see the plants regenerating," researcher Philip Wallis told SBS.
Former Victorian Premier John Brumby knows only too well the political pressures exerted in the environmental debate.
"Often the right response will take a little bit longer to get to and the right response needs to be based on good science," Brumby said.
"Then everybody can agree on the evidence and plot the way forward"
Not an easy task, the former Victorian Premier says, as policy makers grapple with an increasingly impatient twenty-four hour media cycle.
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