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Adjunct Professorial Research Fellow, Partner Investigator, ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies, James Cook University

Prof. Laurence McCook works in science-based management and conservation of marine ecosystems. Laurence has a Ph.D. from Dalhousie University, in Canada, and around 35 years’ experience, especially working on coral reefs in Australia, Indonesia and the “Coral Triangle”, the Pacific and Caribbean, as well as temperate ecosystems. An adjunct Professorial Research Fellow at the Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies, James Cook University, and Visiting Professor at Hasanuddin University, in Makassar, Indonesia, Laurence’s previous roles include Director of Oceans Conservation for WWF Hong Kong, a President's International Visiting Professorial Fellowship from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Senior Advisor to the Marine Program of Conservation International in Indonesia, more than 12 years at the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, and 12 years as a coral reef ecologist at the Australian Institute of Marine Science. He has served extensively on high-level advisory boards, and works with government, academic/research, non-government and industry / corporate sectors and international and UN bodies. His work has contributed to significant conservation outcomes, such as changes in national legislation to protect the Great Barrier Reef.

Laurence's involvement in conservation harks right back to the early 1980s, when he was involved in national level campaigns to protect the pristine wilderness of south-west Tasmania and arctic Norway; the former campaign led to a change of national government.

Laurence was awarded a Pew Fellowship in Marine Conservation in 2005, which focused on enhancing the resilience of coral reefs and marine protected areas to climate change.

Laurence is passionate about the importance of engaging business/corporate and finance sectors to take responsibility for preventing and reversing environmental degradation and to provide the scale-up that is vital for conservation to catchup to global challenges. He is particularly interested in using natural capital and ecosystem service accounting to correct the mistaken perception that human development comes at the cost of nature conservation.

Experience

  • –present
    Adjunct Principal Research Fellow, Partner Investigator, ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies, James Cook University

Education

  • 1992 
    Dalhousie University, Canada, Ph.D. in Marine Science

Honours

Pew Fellow in Marine Conservation