Dr Steven Douglas

Biography / Areas of research/teaching expertise

Dr Douglas has worked in plant ecology and conservation management for over 20 years, with employment at all levels of government and as a consultant. He has specialised in rare and threatened plant species, populations and ecological communities, and has successfully nominated many additions or amendments to the status of threatened biota under NSW and Commonwealth laws. He has also successfully nominated or contributed to nominations of Key Threatening Processes. He has described or co-described new species of Callistemon, with additional species forthcoming, and is a co-author of a future publication verifying the validity of the Critically Endangered Eucalyptus sp. Cattai. He is a NSW Department of Planning, Industry & Environment Threatened Species Expert for numerous plants and several threatened ecological communities, and is involved with several Saving Our Species projects. He has also worked with that agency and local government in fine-scale mapping of Plant Community Types and will soon publish an article that models the original extent of a critically endangered ecological community in the NSW Southern Highlands.

Dr Douglas has also researched and published in fields including environmental law and ethics, environmental sociology of religion, the ‘greening’ of religion, and the ethics of permaculture. He has been a residential tutor at Queens College at Melbourne University, and a marker of undergraduate assignments in Environmental Planning at Charles Sturt University (Albury). He primarily works as a consultant, including environmental impact assessment, threatened flora management, and as an expert witness in court proceedings. He has previously served on Ministerial environmental advisory committees, District Bushfire Management Committees, and a NPWS Regional Advisory Committee.

Awards and recognition

Dr Douglas’ PhD thesis (ANU Fenner School of Environment & Society, 2007) was approved unamended and he was granted a $10,000 Publication Fellowship to fund publication of journal articles based on his research. He was also funded by Monash University to establish the Forum On Religion & Ecology website, which has since moved to Adelaide University, and is based on a continuing project at Yale University in the USA.

Selected publications

Douglas, S.M. and Wilson, P.G. 2015. “Callistemon purpurascens (Myrtaceae): a new and threatened species from the Blue Mountains region of New South Wales, Australia”. Telopea 18: 265-272

Douglas, S.M. 2015. “The ecological ethics of Permaculture, with a focus on non-native invasive species: implications for the emergent Transition Towns movement”. Self-published at: https://www.academia.edu/attachments/48482295/download_file?st=MTQ3NDUxMjA0MiwxMjEuMjE3LjE0MC4xMTcsNjg0NzY2NA%3D%3D&s=profile (opens in a new window)

Beringer, A. and Douglas, S.M. 2012. “On the ethics of international religious/spiritual gatherings and academic conferencing in the era of global warming: A case study of the Parliament of World Religions Melbourne 2009 – Part 1”. Worldviews, 16(2), pp179-195, (on-line edition published 2011) DOI 10.1163/156853511X575620 https://brill.com/view/journals/wo/16/2/article-p179_4.xml (opens in a new window)

Douglas, S.M. 2000. “Local Government & the Threatened Species Conservation Act: the greatest potential; the weakest link”. Australasian Journal of Natural Resources Law & Policy, 6(2)

Links

https://westernsydney.academia.edu/StevenDouglas (opens in a new window)
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Steven_Douglas8 (opens in a new window)
https://www.ecologicalsurveys.net (opens in a new window)