One of the most important steps in designing a monitoring programme is to have very clear objectives. The objectives should define what is the state of the environment desired by managers, over what time frame, in what spatial location, and at what spatial scale. Clear objectives can help defihe what is the being estimated - change over time in numbers, or in spatial coverage of the species. Objective targets need to be measurable and quantified. The need to define objectives is discussed in a very readable paper by Gibbs et al. (1999) where they talk about effective monitoring for adaptive wildlife management. They argue that the effectiveness of monitoring, in terms of how well the results feed into management practice, is determined by how well the objectives of the monitoring are set. In particular it is important to have objectives that, " ... specifically describe some desired state of an appropriate indicator that management is intended to met ... "