Rate My Professor Philip Gibbons

Professor Philip Gibbons is a Professor and Associate Director of Higher-degree Research in the Fenner School of Environment and Society at The Australian National University. He possesses over 30 years of experience in land management, beginning his career with state governments in Victoria and New South Wales as a park ranger, firefighter, and forest ecologist. Gibbons holds a Bachelor of Applied Science from Deakin University, a Master of Forestry from the Australian National University, and a PhD from the Australian National University completed in 1999. Since obtaining his doctorate, he has played pivotal roles in developing codes of practice for harvesting timber from native forests, native vegetation laws, biodiversity offsets policy, protected area management, and research examining links between land management and house losses during bushfires. He currently serves as an Independent Expert for the Natural Resources Commission of the New South Wales Government.

His research focuses on the management of native vegetation, improving environmental impact assessment and environmental offset policy, managing landscapes to reduce house losses and other assets during wildfires, and cost-effective ecological restoration in natural and urban landscapes. Gibbons works closely with Commonwealth and state governments, non-government agencies such as Greening Australia, and the private sector. He has produced 98 peer-reviewed articles, 14 review articles, 8 book chapters, and other research outputs. Key publications include the book 'Tree hollows and wildlife conservation in Australia' (Gibbons and Lindenmayer, 2002), 'Forest and woodland stand structural complexity: its definition and measurement' (McElhinny et al., 2005; 1165 citations), 'A checklist for ecological management of landscapes for conservation' (Lindenmayer et al., 2008; 941 citations), 'Offsets for land clearing: no net loss or the tail wagging the dog?' (Gibbons and Lindenmayer, 2007), and 'Land management practices associated with house loss in wildfires' (Gibbons et al., 2012). He convenes the course Biodiversity Conservation (ENVS3039/6024) and teaches in Contemporary Perspectives in Environment-Society Interactions and other environment-related courses, with an emphasis on field-based learning. Current projects include the Ginninderry Urban Open Space Research Project, Implementing biodiversity metrics, and Site-scaled metrics to support biodiversity assessments.