Leonard Webb (academic)

Len Webb
AO
Webb circa 1950
Born
Leonard James Webb

(1920-10-28)28 October 1920
Rockhampton, Queensland
Died25 November 2008(2008-11-25) (aged 88)
Queensland
NationalityAustralian
Alma materUniversity of Queensland
Known for
  • CSIRO Rainforest Ecology Research Unit (1954-1980)
  • A Physiognomic Classification of Australian Rainforests (1959)[9]
  • The Identification and Conservation of Habitat Types in the Wet Tropical Lowlands of North Queensland (1965[10]
  • Australian Rainforests: Patterns and Change (1981)[11]
  • A Floristic Framework of Australian Rainforests (1984)[12]
SpouseDoris Webb
Awards
Scientific career
FieldsEcology, conservation
Institutions
Thesis Environmental studies in Australian rainforests  (1956)

Leonard James Webb AO (28 October 1920 – 25 November 2008) was a widely awarded Australian ecologist and ethnobotanist who was the author or joint-author of over 112 scientific papers throughout the course of his professional career. His pioneering work as Senior Principal Research Scientist alongside Geoff Tracey in the CSIRO Rainforest Ecology Research Unit in the 1950s led to the publication of the first systematic classification of Australian rainforest vegetation in the Journal of Ecology in 1959.[13][14][15][16]

In the early '80s, after decades of ongoing research, Webb and Tracey had accumulated a large corpus of scientific evidence which confirmed that Australian tropical rainforests had evolved from Gondwana over 100 million years ago and were not, as previously believed, relatively recent arrivals from South East Asia. This discovery served to consolidate the scientific basis for a number of major conservation campaigns across Queensland and paved the way for the subsequent successful World Heritage nomination of the Wet Tropics of Queensland by Aila Keto in 1988.[17][18][19][20][21]

  1. ^ "ESA Gold Medal Past Winners". The Ecological Society of Australia. 1983.
  2. ^ "Mueller Medal (1904 - 2006)". The Encyclopaedia of Australian Science. 1983.
  3. ^ "Webb, Leonard James (1928 - 2008)". The Encyclopaedia of Australian Science. 1983.
  4. ^ "Dr Leonard James Webb". Australian Honours Search Facility: Dept of the Prime Minister and Cabinet. Retrieved 10 June 2020.
  5. ^ "Dr Leonard James Webb Collection". 6 June 2022.
  6. ^ "Mr Leonard James Webb". Australian Honours Search Facility: Dept of the Prime Minister and Cabinet. Retrieved 10 June 2020.
  7. ^ "Dr Leonard WEBB". Australian Honours Search Facility: Dept of the Prime Minister and Cabinet. Retrieved 10 June 2020.
  8. ^ "Wet Tropics Management Authority Honour Roll" – via Wet Tropics Management Authority.
  9. ^ Webb, Len (1 October 1959). "A Physiognomic Classification of Australian Rain Forests". Journal of Ecology. 47 (3). British Ecological Society : Journal of Ecology Vol. 47, No. 3, pp. 551-570: 551–570. doi:10.2307/2257290. JSTOR 2257290.
  10. ^ 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.
  11. ^ Webb, L. J. (Leonard James), 1920-2008; Tracey, J. G. (John Geoffrey), 1920-2004 (1981), Australian Rainforests: Patterns and Change (Ecological Biogeography of Australia, vol. 1 p. 605-694), The Hague: W. Junk, hdl:102.100.100/292256{{citation}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  12. ^ Webb, L. J.; Tracey, J. G.; Williams, W.T. (1984), Floristic framework of Australian rainforests. Australian Journal of Ecology. Vol. 13 pp. 269-276, Australian Journal of Ecology 13:269-276., hdl:102.100.100/277738
  13. ^ "Webb, Leonard James (1920 - 2008)". Council of Heads of Australasian Herbaria, Australian National Herbarium. 27 January 2016 – via Australian National Botanic Gardens.
  14. ^ Borschmann, Gregg (1999). The People's Forest - The Field Botanist (John Geoffrey Tracey). The People's Forest Press. pp. 218–221. ISBN 0-646-36939-3.
  15. ^ Webb, Len (1 October 1959). "A Physiognomic Classification of Australian Rain Forests" (PDF). Journal of Ecology. 47 (3). British Ecological Society : Journal of Ecology Vol. 47, No. 3, pp. 551-570: 551–570. doi:10.2307/2257290. JSTOR 2257290. S2CID 87194512. Archived from the original (PDF) on 27 February 2020.
  16. ^ Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation (1972). Biographical dictionary of botanists represented in the Hunt Institute portrait collection. G. K. Hall. p. 444.
  17. ^ Borschmann, Gregg (1999). The People's Forest - The Field Botanist (John Geoffrey Tracey). The People's Forest Press. pp. 218–221. ISBN 0-646-36939-3.
  18. ^ Hutton, Drew; Connors, Libby (1999). History of the Australian Environmental Movement. Cambridge University Press. p. 171. ISBN 978-0521456869.
  19. ^ Webb, L. J. (Leonard James), 1920-2008; Tracey, J. G. (John Geoffrey), 1920-2004 (1981), Australian Rainforests: Patterns and Change (Ecological Biogeography of Australia, vol. 1 p. 605-694), The Hague: W. Junk, hdl:102.100.100/292256{{citation}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  20. ^ Webb, L. J.; Tracey, J. G.; Williams, W.T. (1984), Floristic framework of Australian rainforests. Australian Journal of Ecology. Vol. 13 pp. 269-276, Australian Journal of Ecology 13:269-276., hdl:102.100.100/277738
  21. ^ Sanderson, Rachel (1 May 2008). "Re-writing the History of Australian Tropical Rainforests: 'Alien Invasives' or 'Ancient Indigenes'?". Environment and History. 14 (2): 165–185. doi:10.3197/096734008X303719. JSTOR 20723663.