The ridiculous notion of assessing ecological health and identifying the useful concepts underneath

Abstract The notion that the ecological health of the environment can be assessed is a ridiculous notion in a scientific context because there can be no objective definition of ‘health’ or method for defining degrees of health. Ecological health is a value judgement. A potentially useful concept embedded within the notion of ecological health is that environmental monitoring programs need to adopt a more holistic, ecosystems approach than has been used hitherto. In this paper, I outline a framework for ecosystem monitoring and discuss some of the variables that might be incorporated to assess ecosystem structure and processes. The interpretation of the data produced by ecosystem monitoring programs is problematic. Defining control or reference sites is virtually impossible; data can only be assessed with reference to extant ecosystems or to past situations.