Peter Stanton

James Peter Stanton PSM (born 1940) is an Australian landscape ecologist, fire ecologist, botanist and biogeographer who individually conducted systematic environmental resource surveys throughout Queensland whilst working for the National Parks department of Forestry (Qld.) from 1967-1974. He carried out his assessments in a wide range of dissimilar landscapes and ecosystems leading to the protection of many critically threatened natural habitats throughout the state within a large new area of National Parks. For this work he became the first Australian to receive the IUCN Fred M. Packard Award, at the Third World Congress on National Parks in Bali in 1982.[1][2]

In 1973, Stanton undertook a field review of the conservation status of the Wet Tropics area of Queensland which spanned two reports that were published by the National Parks Department of Forestry (Qld.) in 1974. [3][4] The reports, which reinforced and extended the 1966 assessments of Dr. Leonard Webb and Geoff Tracey of CSIRO[5], were instrumental to the later gazettal of many national parks in the region.

From 1977 to 1997 he worked as a senior scientist for the Queensland National Parks and Wildlife Service, relocating from Brisbane to Cairns in 1979 where he remained stationed throughout his career. During this period Stanton produced a body of field research which was to significantly inform and support the listing process of the Wet Tropics of Queensland World Heritage area and it’s ongoing ecological management. [6][7][8] His conservation work in the Wet Tropics and Northern Queensland contributed to Stanton being awarded the Public Service Medal of Australia in 1996 for "outstanding public service to natural system protection and conservation planning" [9][10] and the Australian Centenary Medal in 2001 for "a long and distinguished public service career contributing to conservation of the Wet Tropics".[11]

In 2001 Stanton was also the recipient of the Australian Wet Tropics Management Authority’s ‘Cassowary Award’ for his scientific work and his vegetation mapping of the region which later culminated in the publication of 38 vegetation community maps at 1:50,000 scale entitled "The Vegetation of the Wet Tropics of Queensland bioregion" (J.P. & D.J. Stanton, 2005).[12][13] The project built on previous 1:100,000 vegetation mapping (Tracey and Webb 1975) [14] providing finer and more accurate vegetation mapping accompanied by a series of reports describing the main vegetation types of each mapsheet area, their understory types, disturbance histories and their links to the geology of the sites they occupy. [15]

Selected works

The majority of Stanton's early and later resource surveys and scientific papers now reside in the collection of the National Library of Australia.

  • Stanton, J. P. (April 27, 1968). "Future national parks, south-east Queensland" – via National Library of Australia.

References
  1. "Packard Awardees". IUCN. February 19, 2016.
  2. WCPA Members Guide January 2008 (PDF). IUCN, International Union for Conservation of Nature. p. 63.
  3. Stanton, J.P. (April 27, 1974). "A report on the Daintree River - Cooktown region". Queensland Department of Forestry – via Trove.
  4. Stanton, J.P. (April 27, 1974). "A proposed system of national parks for Queensland coastal areas (Bundaberg to the Daintree River)". Queensland Department of Forestry – via Trove.
  5. Webb, Leonard (1966). "The Identification and Conservation of Habitat Types in the Wet Tropical Lowlands of North Queensland". Proceedings of Royal Society of Queensland. 78: 59–86.
  6. Hutton, Drew; Connors, Libby (1999). History of the Australian Environmental Movement. Cambridge University Press. p. 171. ISBN 978-0521456869.
  7. "State of the Wet Tropics Report 2017-18" (PDF). The Wet Tropics Management Authority. December 1, 2018. p. 46 – via Federal Dept. Environment.
  8. Stanton, J. P.; Godwin, M.D. (April 27, 1989). "Report on the conservation status of the remaining habitats of the wet tropical lowlands of Queensland". Brisbane, Qld. : The Queensland National Parks and Wildlife Service & Dept. of Environment and Heritage – via Trove.
  9. "Award Extract - Australian Honours - James Peter Stanton". Australian Government - Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet. Retrieved 27 April 2020.
  10. The Commonwealth of Australia Gazette 1996 No. S 13. Canberra: The Australian Government Publishing Service. 1996-01-26. p. 3. ISBN 0644 46335X.
  11. "James Peter Stanton". Australian Honours Search Facility: Dept of the Prime Minister and Cabinet. Retrieved 2020-04-29.
  12. Stanton, J.P. & D.J. (April 27, 2005). "Vegetation of the Wet Tropics of Queensland bioregion". Wet Tropics Management Authority – via Trove.
  13. "Wet Tropics Management Authority Honour Roll" – via Wet Tropics Management Authority.
  14. Tracey, J.G.; Webb, L.J. (April 27, 1975). "Vegetation of the humid tropical region of North Queensland" – via National Library of Australia.
  15. "Wet Tropics Conservation Strategy (2004)" (PDF). Wet Tropics Management Authority. April 27, 2004. p. 17 – via Wet Tropics Management Authority Website.


This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.