It is just over a decade since Monitoring Ecological Change was first published. During that time there have been a number of developments that have implications for ecological monitoring in theory and in practice. Three developments in particular stand out as being relevant to ecological monitoring. They are not new but there appears to have been a growth in activity of both. One is in the area of state of the environment reports; the second is in the area of community-based environmental and ecological monitoring; and, third, there is the extent of ecological and environmental monitoring that takes place because of international agreements and conventions.

The quality, health or state of the environment seems to be of increasing concern. Despite many effort over the last few decades to curb impacts on the environment, there seems little doubt that environmental degradation continues to get worse. Not surprisingly, many countries have published state of the environment reports and there has been much discussions about the nature and purpose of such reports. As well as national state of the environment reports, there has been a steady growth in the number of region reports that deal with environmental monitoring and environmental quality. Ecological monitoring has a role to play in these state of the environment reports.

Community-based environment monitoring has become widespread practice in many countries. In part, this has been the result of environmental organizations encouraging local communities to take a role in collection and analysis of environmental and ecological data.