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Career Summary
I am currently the Professor of Geography and Environmental Studies, based on the Sandy Bay campus of the University of Tasmania. I helped form the present shape and interests of the school as head for 12 years from 1987 onwards and developed an innovative degree, the Bachelor of Natural Environment and Wilderness Studies.
Since 1972, when I first moved to Tasmania, my research has been largely directed towards providing a scientific basis for the reservation and conservation management of plant species and communities. This work has had some considerable influence on the configuration of reserves in Tasmania, the management regimes adopted within them and national policy development related to biodiversity and world heritage. I have also worked on the politics of environment and the quantification of intangible values, such as wilderness and scenery. I received the Eureka Prize for Environmental Research in 1997 for my development of novel techniques to locate nature reserves, and an Order of Australia (General Division) for service to forest and world heritage conservation in 2003. I was awarded a DSc by the University of Tasmania in 2006. The thesis consisted of a substantial proportion of the more than 200 refereed papers I have written on subjects related to nature conservation. In 2009 I received the gold medal of the Ecological Society of Australia.
The best thing I have done so far during my career has been to supervise the research of more than 50 PhD students and almost 100 masters and honours students. Every person has been different and stimulating, and some wonderful work has been done. I am impressed by the work that these ex-students are doing all around the world, helping people and nature.
Community Engagement
I have been the President of the Institute of Australian Geographers and the Ecological Society of Australia as well as a chair or member of innumerable government, NGO and University committees. I am over committees, but still a member of the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area Advisory Council, as the ecologist. This august group advises on the management of the world heritage area. I am prone to make honest statements to the media about nature conservation issues. This has not helped my ability to gain funds from private enterprise or government. I produce an occasional book that the general public find useful or amusing. Tasmanian Native Trees has sold more than 10,000 copies over the last quarter century. I also give lots of talks to community groups.
Research Interests
One of the major research projects I am working on at the moment, with Jon Marsden-Smedley and Steven Leonard, I prefer to call ‘fire, air, water, earth and teeth’, although a more sober title was used in my successful ARC grant application. This project aims to develop a model of vegetation dynamics incorporating the reciprocal interactions between fire regimes and grazing regimes. It involves a lot of squatting on frozen soil counting scats, as well as experimental burning and computer modelling.
My other major current project is attempting to explain variation in domestic gardens and to assess the conservation significance of this variation. Two PhD students, Tad Zagorski and Grant Daniels, and other academic staff members, have worked with me to produce papers on such subjects as the relationship between attitudes and garden species composition, the differences between back and front gardens, the predictors of garden types, the role of gardens in the conservation of bird species and determining whether neighbours are influenced by adjacent gardens. It seems that people with tertiary education create gardens that are liked by the rarer small birds, so I am doing some good after all. The major focus of this research at the moment is on the patterns and causes of the life and death of trees in Australian suburbia, a project (with Aidan Davison) supported by the ARC.
I am interested in any research that helps the conservation of nature, or amuses me. Over the years I have been involved in political, policy and social analyses as well as ecological inquiry. My most recently completed project, with Kerry Bridle, has been on people, sheep and nature conservation in Tasmania. This project ranged from qualitative interviews, through action research to ecological experimentation, with the aim of integrating nature conservation and wool production. The book of the project (CSIRO Publishing 2007) is a good read.
Teaching
I currently co-ordinate, and lecture in, a first year unit in Hobart called 'Space, Place and Nature' and teach a third year undergraduate unit accurately called 'Vegetation Management'. I have constantly had 15-20 research students for the past two decades. These range from honours to PhD level. We interact frequently. My supervision and undergraduate teaching takes advantage of the amazing natural laboratory and development site currently called Tasmania, although some students have done, or are doing, their research in other places, such as Peru, New Guinea, Melbourne and the Galapagoes.
UnitsSelected Publications:- Kirkpatrick, J.B., 2006, 'The Ecologies of Paradise: Explaining the Garden Next Door', Pandani Press, Hobart
- Kirkpatrick, J.B., 1999, 'A Continent Transformed- Human Impact on the Natural Vegetation of Australia', 2nd edition, Oxford University Press, Sydney
- Kirkpatrick, J.B., 1997, 'Alpine Tasmania: An Illustrated Guide to the Flora and Vegetation', Oxford University Press, Melbourne
- Kirkpatrick, J.B., Gilfedder, L., Bridle, K.L. and Zacharek, A., 2005, 'The positive and negative conservation impacts of sheep grazing and other disturbances on the vascular plant species and vegetation of lowland subhumid Tasmania', Ecological Management and Restoration, 6, pgs. 51-60
- Bar-Ness, Y.D., Kirkpatrick, J.B. and McQuillan, P.B., 2006, 'Age and distance effects on the canopy arthropod composition of old growth and 100 year old Eucalyptus obliqua trees', Forest Ecology and Management , 226, pgs. 290-298
- Bridle, K.L. and Kirkpatrick, J.B. , 2005, 'An analysis of the breakdown of paper products (toilet paper, tissues and tampons) in natural environments, Tasmania, Australia', Journal of Environmental Management, 74, pgs. 21-30
- Kirkpatrick, J.B., Daniels, G. and Zagorski, T, 2007, 'Explaining variation in front gardens between suburbs of Hobart, Tasmania, Australia (currently in press)', Landscape and Urban Planning
Full Publication List Current and Supervised Project/s:
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