Leonard Webb (academic)

Len Webb

AO
Len Webb; AO
	Webb circa 1950
Born	Leonard James Webb; 28 October 1920; Rockhampton, Queensland
Died	25 November 2008 (aged 88); Queensland
Nationality	Australian
Alma mater	University of Queensland
Known for	CSIRO Rainforest Ecology Research Unit (1954-1980); A Physiognomic Classification of Australian Rainforests (1959); The Identification and Conservation of Habitat Types in the Wet Tropical Lowlands of North Queensland (1965; Australian Rainforests: Patterns and Change (1981); A Floristic Framework of Australian Rainforests (1984); ;
Spouse	Doris Webb
Awards	Gold Medal, Ecological Society of Australia (1983); Mueller Medal, Australian and New Zealand Association for the Advancement of Science(1983); BHP Pursuit of Excellence (Environment) Prize (1984); Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) for service to conservation, particularly in the field of rainforest ecology (1987); Doctor of the University, Griffith University (1991); Civilian Service Medal 1939–1945 (1995); Australian Centenary Medal for service to conservation and the environment in Queensland (2001); Cassowary Award (in conjunction with Geoff Tracey) for Science and Conservation. Wet Tropics Management Authority (2000); ;
	Scientific career
Fields	Ecology, conservation
Institutions	CSIRO; Griffith University;
Thesis	Environmental studies in Australian rainforests (1956)

Leonard James Webb AO (28 October 1920 – 25 November 2008) was a widely awarded Australian ecologist and ethnobotanist who was the author or joint-author of over 112 scientific papers throughout the course of his professional career. His pioneering work as Senior Principal Research Scientist alongside Geoff Tracey in the CSIRO Rainforest Ecology Research Unit in the 1950s led to the publication of the first systematic classification of Australian rainforest vegetation in the Journal of Ecology in 1959.

In the early '80s, after decades of ongoing research, Webb and Tracey had accumulated a large corpus of scientific evidence which confirmed that Australian tropical rainforests had evolved from Gondwana over 100 million years ago and were not, as previously believed, relatively recent arrivals from South East Asia. This discovery served to consolidate the scientific basis for a number of major conservation campaigns across Queensland and paved the way for the subsequent successful World Heritage nomination of the Wet Tropics of Queensland by Aila Keto in 1988.

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