Global momentum is building for the different actors involved in agriculture, forestry and other forms of land use to better support a sustainable future; one that helps curb climate change, enhances biodiversity and supports the production and consumption of affordable and nutritious food.

Yet understanding the environmental limits within which the land use sector must operate remains a challenge. What do the global environmental limits and goals mean for Australia? And how do we define and measure what sustainability means and looks like for a particular sector, especially one as complex as land use?

Understanding what sustainability means in practical, measurable terms is important in a context in which the land use sector is under increasing pressure from growing populations, the impacts of climate change and extreme weather events. The latest climate change reports highlight that climate change is already having dramatic impacts on the health of human societies and the natural systems that support them, with implications for food and land use systems.

This report summarises work undertaken through the Land Use Futures program to adapt the planetary boundaries to the Australian context, highlighting key insights derived from a foundational technical report, which is forthcoming. It outlines how Australia is tracking against its share of planetary boundaries and considers how the land use sector is both contributing to and affected by environmental limits.

The findings demonstrate that across a number of variables used to assess planetary health, key environmental systems in Australia are showing signs of stress or near failure.