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Peter Stanton
James Peter Stanton PSM (born 23 April 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 to 1974. He carried out his assessments in a range of dissimilar landscapes leading to the identification and protection of many critically threatened ecosystems across the state during a period of rapid and widespread land development under the Joh Bjelke-Petersen government. For this work he became the first Australian to receive the IUCN Fred M. Packard Award in 1982.
He was involved in two incidents where implemented or proposed disciplinary actions became prominent controversies. The first began with him standing in the path of bulldozers, the other with ordering that a vehicle and items seized from a smuggler be turned over to the police rather than being handled by higher-ups in his organization.
Since 2003, Stanton has worked with the Australian Wildlife Conservancy as a fire and vegetation ecologist.
Peter Stanton was born on 23 April 1940 at Shorncliffe, on the northern outskirts of Brisbane. He was educated at Banyo State High School, where he excelled at languages and athletics, and later at the University of Queensland and the Australian Forestry School (Canberra), emerging with a Bachelor of Science in Agriculture and a Diploma in Forestry in 1962.
His formative years in the field of ecology were as a young child, on the mudflats of Shorncliffe and in the bushland of Bribie Island along with his younger brother, John, an actor. Stanton would later describe the sand island landscapes of his childhood around Moreton Bay as "unspoiled paradises of forest, swamp, flowering heath, giant sandhills, and seemingly endless surf and still water beaches" citing the subsequent broad-scale development of many such environments on the South-Eastern coastal fringe of Queensland in the 1960s as an early motivating influence upon his conservation work.
Stanton worked for five years as a forester until, in 1967, he was transferred to the National Parks branch of the Queensland Forestry Department. His transfer was a result of the interest he had shown in National Parks while working in Mackay, and his nomination of and the subsequent gazettal of Cape Upstart (east of Bowen) as a National Park.
In 1973, Stanton undertook a field review of the conservation status of the Wet Tropics area of Queensland spanning two reports which were published by Queensland Forestry in 1974. The reports reinforced and extended the 1965 conservation assessments of Dr. Leonard Webb and Geoff Tracey of CSIRO which had been confined to the lowland areas of the region on account of the extreme development pressures which were placed on the lowlands from the mid-1950s onwards. Stanton's assessments confirmed that "the areas Webb and Tracey had identified were still some of the highest priorities for conservation" whilst also identifying and recommending the protection of a number of additional endangered habitats both within and beyond the lowland areas. The early conservation work conducted in the Wet Tropics by Stanton, along with that of Webb and Tracey, was instrumental to the later protection of many rare and threatened landscapes within the region, including the lowland rainforests of the Daintree and Cape Tribulation area.
In 1980 Stanton was invited to address the second World Wilderness Congress which was held in Cairns, Queensland the same year. His oration ‘The Wilderness of Cape York Peninsula’ was delivered alongside addresses by Bob Brown, Laurens van der Post, Jean Dorst, Ian Player, Madame Laurence de Bonneval, Geoff Mosley and Ray Arnett amongst other delegates representing 25 countries. The congress was to result in the commitment to protect areas of virgin rainforest in Queensland under park status by the premier of the state as well as the recommendation for the inclusion of the Great Barrier Reef on the World Heritage list by then Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser.
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Peter Stanton
James Peter Stanton PSM (born 23 April 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 to 1974. He carried out his assessments in a range of dissimilar landscapes leading to the identification and protection of many critically threatened ecosystems across the state during a period of rapid and widespread land development under the Joh Bjelke-Petersen government. For this work he became the first Australian to receive the IUCN Fred M. Packard Award in 1982.
He was involved in two incidents where implemented or proposed disciplinary actions became prominent controversies. The first began with him standing in the path of bulldozers, the other with ordering that a vehicle and items seized from a smuggler be turned over to the police rather than being handled by higher-ups in his organization.
Since 2003, Stanton has worked with the Australian Wildlife Conservancy as a fire and vegetation ecologist.
Peter Stanton was born on 23 April 1940 at Shorncliffe, on the northern outskirts of Brisbane. He was educated at Banyo State High School, where he excelled at languages and athletics, and later at the University of Queensland and the Australian Forestry School (Canberra), emerging with a Bachelor of Science in Agriculture and a Diploma in Forestry in 1962.
His formative years in the field of ecology were as a young child, on the mudflats of Shorncliffe and in the bushland of Bribie Island along with his younger brother, John, an actor. Stanton would later describe the sand island landscapes of his childhood around Moreton Bay as "unspoiled paradises of forest, swamp, flowering heath, giant sandhills, and seemingly endless surf and still water beaches" citing the subsequent broad-scale development of many such environments on the South-Eastern coastal fringe of Queensland in the 1960s as an early motivating influence upon his conservation work.
Stanton worked for five years as a forester until, in 1967, he was transferred to the National Parks branch of the Queensland Forestry Department. His transfer was a result of the interest he had shown in National Parks while working in Mackay, and his nomination of and the subsequent gazettal of Cape Upstart (east of Bowen) as a National Park.
In 1973, Stanton undertook a field review of the conservation status of the Wet Tropics area of Queensland spanning two reports which were published by Queensland Forestry in 1974. The reports reinforced and extended the 1965 conservation assessments of Dr. Leonard Webb and Geoff Tracey of CSIRO which had been confined to the lowland areas of the region on account of the extreme development pressures which were placed on the lowlands from the mid-1950s onwards. Stanton's assessments confirmed that "the areas Webb and Tracey had identified were still some of the highest priorities for conservation" whilst also identifying and recommending the protection of a number of additional endangered habitats both within and beyond the lowland areas. The early conservation work conducted in the Wet Tropics by Stanton, along with that of Webb and Tracey, was instrumental to the later protection of many rare and threatened landscapes within the region, including the lowland rainforests of the Daintree and Cape Tribulation area.
In 1980 Stanton was invited to address the second World Wilderness Congress which was held in Cairns, Queensland the same year. His oration ‘The Wilderness of Cape York Peninsula’ was delivered alongside addresses by Bob Brown, Laurens van der Post, Jean Dorst, Ian Player, Madame Laurence de Bonneval, Geoff Mosley and Ray Arnett amongst other delegates representing 25 countries. The congress was to result in the commitment to protect areas of virgin rainforest in Queensland under park status by the premier of the state as well as the recommendation for the inclusion of the Great Barrier Reef on the World Heritage list by then Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser.