A new report released by the Heinz Center for Science, Economics and the Environment, The State of the Nation's Ecosystems, reinforces the findings in the Greening the Governments report released by MEC last April. The State of the Nation's Ecosystems is national in scope and focuses on overall ecosystem health indicators. The Greening the Governments report is a regional comparison of the environmental quality and state performance of each Great Lakes state.

Although broader in scope and different in its ecosystem approach, The State of the Nation's Ecosystem similarly finds that most environmental data doesn't exist or is too inconsistent to develop key environmental indicators. The report's chair, William Clark, notes "nearly half the indicators lack sufficient data."

MEC's Dave Dempsey, who coordinated the Greening the Governments report, said, "We found the main challenge in ascertaining environmental indicators was the lack of consistent and comparable data within and between the states. This not only thwarts citizens' right to measure the progress of government in protecting and restoring natural resources, but also inhibits the ability of government agencies to understand and correct environmental problems."

The Greening the Governments report proposes a "Right to Know Compact" to standardize the collection and reporting of key environmental data in the Great Lakes region.

The State of the Nation's Ecosystems expands on the importance of environmental indicators by comparing their necessity in the policy process to that of economic indicators on fiscal policy.

"Just as economic policies are informed through a set of key indicators such as gross domestic product, inflation, unemployment and the balance of trade, we as a nation must have clear indicators of the condition of our ecosystems as a basis for shaping public policies and private sector initiatives," states Clark.

The Heinz Center report was commissioned by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and funded by various federal agencies, corporations and foundations. The report will be updated annually and revised every five years, making it possible to have a consistent set of national environmental indicators in the future.

The Greening the Governments report was funded by the Joyce Foundation.

Both organizations collaborated with environmental experts from the public, private and nonprofit sectors to develop the reports. Each report claims to be an independent, objective assessment of environmental conditions.

For online copies of the reports, visit: www.mecprotects.org/greening .html for Greening the Governments and www.heinzctr.org/ecosystems for The State of the Nation's Ecosystems.