Rule no 4, must have effective monitoring and enforcement: Each State monitors the kangaroo population each year by arial surveys, over 25 years of such monitoring has allowed the development of reliable and repeatable systems. Each State also has rigorous systems to control the take. All kangaroo harvesters must be accredited and licensed. They must purchased sequentially numbered, plastic, lockable tags to affix to all kangaroos taken and must submit monthly reports giving the sex, species, source, weight and tag number of every kangaroo taken. Processors also have a rigorous licensing system and must only purchase kangaroos from licensed harvesters. The extent of monitoring can be demonstrated by data collected by one kangaroo processor showing that throughout a 10 year period he was visited by a Government agent on average once every nine days!

Rule no 5, mistakes should cause little damage: Kangaroo populations are vast and highly mobile. Even if locally mistakes lead to reduction of population below sustainable levels, migration from outside populations will certainly quickly rebuild numbers. Indeed recent work has demonstrated the very nature of kangaroo harvesting ensures this. Monitoring of harvester behavior has demonstrated that any areas of rough terrain or denser than normal vegetation are largely ignored in preference to more easily accessible areas. These become inbuilt refugia for populations to replenish harvested areas with both numbers and genetic material. The trials are suggesting that most properties have numerous and extensive such refugia (McLeod et al 1998).

Rule no 6, locals should benefit: The vast bulk of the 4000 jobs generated by the industry are located in remote or regional Australia. In many small towns the kangaroo industry is the major employer.

The kangaroo industry appears to be something of an international model for sustainable wildlife utilisation, given it is probably the world largest land based consumptive wildlife industry this is somewhat gratifying. If it continues current expansion levels it is estimated the national quotas will be fully taken on a regular basis within 10 years. Further product value adding after this will lead to the situation within 20 years where kangaroo harvesting may well replace wool production as the preferred enterprise across large parts of the arid Australian rangelands, thus realising the IUCN's call for an indigenisation of agricultural production in that part of the 'New World'.