The Bob Brown Foundation says that Professor Jamie Kirkpatrick, who died yesterday, was Tasmania’s towering figure of the natural sciences.
Speaking for the foundation, former Greens Leader Christine Milne described Kirkpatrick as “The geographer and conservation ecologist who has been our anchor in academia and fellow activist on the front line of nature conservation in Tasmania for the past half-century.”
At Professor Kirkpatrick’s poignant last book launch, less than two weeks ago, Milne said:
“Without you, we would not have successfully expanded the boundaries of the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area in the early 1990’s or protected its natural and cultural values and physical area from the vandalism proposed by developers, scenery miners and loggers and the Abbott led LNP. Nor would we, as a conservation community, have had the laughs or taken the risks that we have to protect Nature. We needed you, Jamie, to speak out, to give us the evidence and the confidence that our arguments for conservation were right. You never let us down.”
Jamie has taught and influenced the lives and outlook of thousands of students, supervised numerous theses and published hundreds of academic papers; sat on numerous state, Commonwealth Advisory Committees, and his influence, since the publication of his groundbreaking work in 1984, has been global in changing the way people think about priorities in designing protected areas.
“Jamie Kirkpatrick met the ongoing ruination of Tasmania’s natural realm with both rage and humour but always the search for the truth. His humanity and love for life on Earth, combined with his enormous intellect, is a source of ongoing inspiration for everyone wanting to cut through the greenwash and self interest to save what’s left of our oceans, forests, grasslands and wildlife,” Bob Brown added.
Tasmanian Man Booker Prize winning author Richard Flanagan, who is overseas, has released the following:
“Jamie Kirkpatrick was an extraordinary figure, a remarkable scientist, a joyful, funny man, and a consistently truthful and courageous voice for the wonder of Tasmania. From when I first met him in the late 1970s I admired him and was inspired by him, as were so many.He never ceased to delight in our island’s beauty and explain in a way all could understand why it was so remarkable. He never gave up fighting for that beauty, his awe demanding of him his advocacy. I mourn his passing,” said Richard Flanagan.
“Though he delighted as much in tiny flora as large, and would perhaps not care much for the image, it’s true to say there is a big hole in the forest today with Jamie Kirkpatrick gone,” said Richard Flanagan.
