Mark Ballantyne

PhD Student in Recreation Ecology and Ecotourism, Griffith University

Mark Ballantyne is a PhD student and researcher at Griffith University, Australia. His research interests come from a background in conservation, visitor management, biodiversity monitoring and tourism. Graduating from Lancaster University in the UK he is now completing a PhD in Australia addressing the impacts of tourism and recreation on endangered ecosystems. This work looks at how these booming industries affect species and communities already threatened with extinction, with a primary interest in trail networks and how they disturb the structure, function and composition of biodiversity. He has traveled extensively with this work including to the Australian Alps, Papua New Guinea and Sweden.

Experience

–present

PhD Student in Recreation Ecology and Ecotourism, Griffith University

Education

2011

Lancaster University, BSc (Hons) Ecology

Publications

2014

Recreational trails are an important cause of fragmentation in endangered urban forests - a case-study from Australia, Landscape and Urban Planning (130)
2014

Sustained impacts of a hiking trail on changing Windswept Feldmark vegetation in the Australian Alps, Australian Journal of Botany (62)
2013

Orchids: an example of charismatic megaflora tourism?, The Routledge Handbook of Tourism and the Environment
2013

Tourism and recreation - a common threat to IUCN red-listed vascular plants in Europe, Biodiversity and Conservation (22.13-14)
2012

Ecotourism as a threatening process for wild orchids, Journal of Ecotourism (11.1)