ABOUT: Roger Martin is a wildlife biologist who lives on the Atherton Tablelands in Far North Queensland.

In 1983 he was awarded the degree of Master of Science by Monash University for his pioneering research on the ecology of koalas in Victoria. He continued his work on koalas into the late 1990’s and published numerous scientific papers on their biology over that time. In 1989 he was commissioned by the Victorian Department of Conservation to write the first management plan for the koala in that State. In 1996 he co-authored the book ‘The Koala: Natural History, Conservation and Management’ which was published in Australia by UNSW Press and in the United States by Krieger Publishing Company. Reprinted in 1999, it is now out of print but still cited in the scientific literature as a primary reference on the biology of the koala.

Roger commenced research on Bennett’s Tree-kangaroo in 1989 and moved to the Tablelands to live and conduct research on Lumholtz’s Tree-kangaroo in 2011. Alarmed by the death of an estimated 60,000 koalas in the 2018/19 bushfires in south-eastern Australia and the resulting upgrade of the koala to ‘endangered’ status in both Queensland and New South Wales, Roger resumed koala research in 2021. The focus of this research is the koala population of Far North Queensland. Up to this time no field studies have been done on these northern koalas, yet the upland Eucalyptus forests of this region are recognized as important climate change ‘refugia’; that is, habitat where wild koalas may avoid the probable devastation to be wrought by climate change on most of Australia’s southern populations.

Taken from The Transition to Extinction seminar hosted by TESS and James Cook University, March 6 2024.