Sir John Lawton | |
|---|---|
| Born | John Hartley Lawton (1943-09-24)24 September 1943 (age 82) Preston,Lancashire, England |
| Alma mater | University of Durham |
| Awards | Kempe Award for Distinguished Ecologists (1998) Frink Medal (1998) Marsh Ecology Award (1996) Japan Prize (2004) RSPB Medal |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | |
| Institutions | University of York York Museums Trust |
Sir John Hartley LawtonCBE FRS (born 24 September 1943) is a Britishecologist,RSPB Vice President, President (former Chair) of theYorkshire Wildlife Trust,[1] President ofThe Institution of Environmental Sciences,[2] Chairman ofYork Museums Trust[3] and President of the York Ornithological Club.
He has previously been a trustee ofWWF UK[1] and head ofNatural Environment Research Council (NERC) and was the last chair of theRoyal Commission on Environmental Pollution.[1][4] In October 2011, he was awarded theRSPB Medal.[1]
As a child, Lawton was a member of theYoung Ornithologists' Club,[1] and later helped run the RSPB Members' Group in York.[1] In his youth, he volunteered for the RSPB'sOperation Osprey atLoch Garten.[1]
Lawton studied at theUniversity of Durham, completing aBachelor of Science in Zoology[5] followed by a PhD in 1969.[6] He belonged toUniversity College.[5] Lawton was Demonstrator in Ecology in the Department of Zoology at theUniversity of Oxford from 1968, moving to theDepartment of Biology, University of York, in 1971.[4] He was awarded a Personal Chair at York in 1985. He founded, and was the first Director of, the NERC Centre for Population Biology at Imperial College,Silwood Park.
In 1994, he gave theWitherby Memorial Lecture on 'Numbers and range in the field and in the mind'.[7]
In October 1999, he was appointed the Chief Executive of NERC, retaining an honorary professorship at Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine. Following his retirement from NERC in March 2005, he was appointed Chairman of the Royal Commission on Environment Pollution from 1 April 2005,[8] and was reappointed for a second three-year term in 2008.
His interests have focused on the population dynamics andbiodiversity of birds and insects, with emphasis over the last decade on the impacts of global environmental change on wild plants and animals. He was instrumental in establishing The Royal Society for the Protection of Bird's strategy for protecting landscapes.[citation needed] He has made major contributions to environmental NGOs, including a five-year period as Chairman of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds and a trustee of WWF-UK.[4]
He shared theJapan Prize for Science and Technology for Conservation of Biodiversity in 2004 "for observational, experimental and theoretical achievements for the scientific understanding and conservation of Biodiversity".
In 2009 he published an official review of the Meteorological Office'sHadley Centre.
In 2010 he reported an official review of England's protected areas, published asMaking Space for Nature.[9]
Lawton has been outspoken on the issue ofglobal warming and is reported to have said, in the context ofHurricane Katrina:
The increased intensity of these kinds of extreme storms is very likely to be due to global warming… If this makes the climate loonies in the States realize we've got a problem, some good will come out of a truly awful situation.[10]
On 2 November 2019, he appeared on the podcastTrees A Crowd withDavid Oakes.[11]
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