Prof. Hugh Possingham is the Director of The Ecology Centre and the Commonwealth funded Applied Environmental Decision Analysis facility (AEDA – www.aeda.edu.au) both based at the University of Queensland.   Hugh was recently awarded a Federation Fellowship, has chaired Federal government committees on Biodiversity, is a member of The Wentworth Group, and was an instrumental voice in both the rezoning of the Great Barrier Reef (2004) and in the formation of legislation that has lead to an almost complete end to land clearing in NSW & Qld.  He has successfully supervised over 24 PhD students, 46 honours students, and published over 200 pier reviewed articles, books and book chapters.  He currently heads up a research group at the University of Queensland of over 45 researchers.