Acknowledgments Acknowledgment is made to the following people and organisations for their assistance in preparing this report. Council's Environment Consultative Committee For contributions regarding community responses and comments on various sections of the report. The Role of Local Government in Managing Our Environment Many solutions to environmental problems lie with local government and increasingly, the actions of local government are being recognised as a key means of protecting and restoring the environment.
Council plays an important role various areas.
All of these activities have an environmental impact in one form or another. SoE reporting provides the community with information on attributes of the local environment and the human impacts on that environment. It also provides a public account of the actions of government, industry and the community in addressing environmental problems. This report is a supplementary report. It presents an update on environmental changes and responses concerning the local environment for the period July 1997 to June 1998, using various environmental indicators that are relevant to each environmental sector.