Alec Marr
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About Alec
Alec is one of the world's most effective environmentalists
Background
Alec Marr is regarded by his international peers as one of the world’s most effective environmentalists.
He has been involved in successful environmental campaigns across Australia since 1985. From 1997 – 2010 he led The Wilderness Society (TWS) in Australia transforming it into Australia’s pre-eminent nature conservation organisation. Under his leadership TWS experienced a period of unprecedented organisational growth and campaign success, with TWS having helped protect 32 million hectares of Australia’s natural heritage by 2009.
Some of the individual campaigns which involved both domestic and international work lead by Alec include:
- Inscription of Australia’s Sub Antarctic Islands (Macquarie, Heard and McDonald) on the World Heritage list.
- Closure of the Jabiluka uranium mine in Kakadu National park and blocking the creation of a nuclear fuel dump in Northern Australia
- Encouraging customers of the southern hemisphere’s largest woodchip company (Gunns Limited) to shift their purchasing policies away from High Conservation Value forest and accepting that it should cease native forest logging
Alec has an extensive set of international networks established through his work through IUCN and the World Heritage Convention and World Wilderness Congress. His awards include the Australian Humanitarian Award on behalf of The Wilderness Society in 2000 and Wild magazine’s Environmentalist of the Year award in 2001. He was recognised as one of ’20 Global Wilderness Visionaries’ by the World Wilderness Congress in 2010. Alec is one of the founders of Kuno