The Australia Day Honours earlier this year saw UNE alumnus Professor Ross Jeffree recognised for his service to conservation and the environment, nuclear science and education. But for Ross, the job is far from over.
Although officially retired, he continues to keep his finger on the pulse of international environmental affairs as a member of the IUCN’s World Commission on Protected Areas, a champion for orangutans and advisor to the NSW National Parks Association.
“Australia’s environmental record is appalling; we have the highest mammal extinction rate in the world, we continue to lose forests and there’s no real determination to adequately reduce carbon emissions,” Ross said. “I’m so disappointed in the Federal Coalition for squandering the future of subsequent generations. It verges on environmental criminality.”
“But I am not going to be the one who sits back and gives up; I will continue to do what I can, to keep pushing to ensure that robust science informs policy.”
Ross was working as an environmental scientist with the Australian Atomic Energy Commission (now ANSTO) when he embarked on a PhD at UNE to study the accumulation of radionuclides in freshwater mussels in Kakadu National Park. The mussels were part of the traditional diet of Aboriginal people living around the Ranger uranium mine and there was concern they were being contaminated by the mining operation.
“We needed a lot more information about what was happening and I was doing the research, writing and publishing papers; there was a perfect synergy between my work and the study,” Ross says. “I loved coming up to UNE; it was such a supportive, enthusiastic place, and I have many positive memories of that time.”
During the international career that unfolded Ross provided evidence of radio-nuclear contamination in marine food chains in the region of French weapons testing in the South Pacific, contributed findings on ocean acidification to the Paris Climate Agreement (2015) and headed up an international team of scientists at the United Nations Marine Radioecology Laboratory in Monaco for seven years.
Working in such a politically fraught space had its challenges.
“There was a lot of political sensitivity around the French testing, then the Rainbow Warrior was bombed in Auckland Harbour and a pressing need to heal old wounds,” Ross says. “We were asked to get involved with New Zealand and France in a tri-partisan environmental monitoring program in French Polynesia to test for radionuclide contamination. Our discovery that sea life in these low productivity marine environments had a greater capacity to accumulate radionuclides attracted a lot of political interest.
“Everything we did was scrutinised very closely and there was great interest in the science being done.”
The findings on the impact of CO2 emissions (and resulting ocean acidification) on marine animals, presented to the UN Climate Change Meeting in Paris in 2015, gave the marine environment a real voice at this international forum for the first time. “It has since become a big factor in the deliberations of the IPCC on climate change,” Ross says. “I am rather proud of that; that it’s continuing to be influential.”
During his highly influential career, Ross has held research, management and diplomatic positions at ANSTO and the Australian High Commission in London and has authored more than 160 scientific publications.
“I have always had a fascination with biology,” he says. “When I was 16 I read On the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin and a book about conservation in Africa (Serengeti Shall Not Die, by Bernard Grzimek). I wouldn’t say I understood it all, but it resonated with me. Everything I have done since has been guided by biological theory, conservation, biodiversity preservation and how we can live in a sustainable way to the benefit of everybody, especially the people.”
Ross Jeffree cultivating algae to feed to freshwater mussels while enrolled in his PhD at UNE and working as an experimental officer with the Australian Atomic Energy Commission (now ANSTO).
After more than 40 years identifying and addressing a variety of environmental problems, Ross says he’s been left with one burning question: is it humanly possible to live in peaceful co-existence with biodiversity? He believes Bhutan is an exemplar of how “ambitious aspirations in biodiversity conservation are achievable, to the benefit of both the populace and the other species with which they share their country”.
It’s this lofty ambition that continues to motivate Ross to fundraise for The Orangutan Project in Indonesia, support the National Parks Association in Australia and to advise internationally on “how we might get out of this impasse of economics versus ecology”.
“The pressures are still out there and increasing; you can’t just say I’ve retired, someone else can deal with this problem,” he says. “I have some faith that the uncomfortable realities will be addressed. People are scared now by the number of extreme weather events and higher insurance costs and we are seeing change at the corporate level. I think there will be a rapid transition and we may well see it at the next federal election. It’s now forces of numbers; not just lonely voices in the wilderness.”
Which brings us back to the importance of science and a good scientific education. “You will never find out anything without a good scientific method and those methods require you to be really ruthless about what a good dataset looks like,” Ross says. “Is it robust? What more do I have to do? Will this hypothesis withstand critical analysis? How many ways can I test this hypothesis? Asking a good question and then experimenting, critically observing and testing the hell out of it to see if it holds water.
“All that comes from your science training, and doing the PhD at UNE was pivotal for me. The scientific method I developed has now been applied to everything from mussels and sea urchins, to sharks, cuttlefish and tropical crocodiles.”
Ross says looking into the eyes of a wild orangutan in northern Sumatra, and recognising its genetic similarities, “has an effect on you that you just don’t forget”. “There is this respect for their independent existence and a wish that they could continue on their evolutionary journey without being extricated by human greed,” he says.
“It’s a tragedy when any animal or plant goes extinct. Any species alive today is a survivor, to have endured the Pleistocene. If we can’t protect an animal like the orangutan, so genetically and geographically close to us, then it’s a double tragedy. I don’t want to see them go extinct, so I do what I can. According to Buddhist philosophy, to care about something else diminishes your own self obsessions and hence your suffering.”
