information is the foundation of sustainable development and is fundamental to successful planning and decision making. If decisions making are made without sound data and information, they will be little better than best guesses and are likely to be wrong. Economic and social data are widely available and are relatively reliable and well understood. The situation with environmental data and information is somewhat different. High quality, comprehensive and timely information on the environment remain a scarce resource, and finding the 'right' information can pose problems: data are more difficult and expensive to obtain. It is also difficult to find indicators that capture and reflect the complexity of the environment and human vulnerability to environmental change. Environmental data acquisition remains a basic need in all countries.