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Prior to the roundtable session the APN Secretariat gathered comments from the global change community regarding the follow-up to the WSSD. The following points were submitted for consideration:

• Continued need for all sustainability research to be under-pinned by consistent, reliable data. This means there is a real need to support the development and then the monitoring of a range of indicators in the environment. Policy makers need to have confidence in the data they are being presented with.
  
• Importance of information from the past, as recorded in Palaeoenvironmental*1 archives, in developing strategies for sustainable development of natural resources. Paleo is relevant to all such conservation strategies. For example, concerning biodiversity and fresh water:
  
1. Understanding the basis for the initiation and persistence of regional biodiversity in the past is clearly part of the key to ensuring its future survival.
   
2. Understanding of the paleohydrological processes involved in creation and recharge of modern groundwater aquifers must play a role if we are to achieve sustainable development of these fresh water resources.
   
• The Global Change Programmes and Sustainable Development:
  
  The four global environmental change research programmes (World Climate Research Programme (WCRP), International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme (IGBP), International Programme of Biodiversity Science (DIVERSITAS), and International Human Dimensions Programme on Global Environmental Change (IHDP) ) co-ordinate research world-wide on all aspects (causes, consequences and societal responses) of global environmental change.
  
  The four programmes collaborate under the umbrella of the "Earth System Science Partnership (ESSP)" The partnership has been described in more detail by Anne Larigauderie in the IGBP Newsletter, Issue No. 50, June 2002. The ESSP has a central aim of demonstrating INTEGRATION. Examples of integration include the capacity building initiatives of START (Global Change System for Analysis Research and Training), three joint projects on Carbon, Food and Water, as well as the development of integrated regional studies and a number of joint projects and collaborative efforts (e.g. LUCC (Land-Use and Land-Cover Change cosponsored by IGBP and IHDP); GAIM (Global Analysis, Integration and Modelling.)
  
  Science in support of sustainable development requires integrated studies encompassing a wide range of disciplines (natural and social sciences, engineering, health sciences), with a "place-based" focus (integrated regional studies) and an agenda-setting and research process that involves all relevant stakeholders. Innovative methodologies for bridging disciplinary and national divides are being developed. ESSP provides a strong contribution from the global environmental change research community to the goals of sustainable development.