Opportunities and issues in using the interactive web for environmental management

This presentation introduces an investigation into harnessing the interactive capabilities of the internet to facilitate community participation in environmental reporting and management. Key interactive capabilities are web based spatial information systems and mobile mapping techniques, supplemented by capabilities to integrate textual data and other multimedia, tools for the quality assutance of data and suppliers, and the ability to support peer to peer dialogue. With these capabilities is is now possible for anyone with internet access to publish a great variety of information and connect in communities of interest. This has the potential to allow wider community resources to be directed toward the achievement of environmental sustainability, without being controlled or mediated by partisan interests.