Peter Mumby
The 2011 Rosenstiel Award Selection Committee announced the awarding of the 38th Rosenstiel Award to Dr. Peter Mumby, a British marine ecologist and professor at Australia’s University of Queensland. Mumby, who is in the midst of a very prestigious five-year Australian Council Laureate fellowship and a Pew Fellow for Marine Conservation, is a well-published researcher, including 85 journal articles, seven book chapters and two books. He is widely known for his goal to understand the benefits and limitations of conservation strategies for coral reefs. His work includes extensive study alongside colleagues in the Caribbean reefs, where they discovered that the direct effects of protecting fish can have profound indirect effects on the ecosystem. His findings have helped provide insight into the consequences of conserving herbivorous fishes, reducing nutrient runoff, conserving mangroves, and restoring urchin populations. Mumby’s research has influenced conservation policy, contributing to the implementation of a ban on herbivore exploitation in Belize and the identification of a marine park at Conception Island in the Bahamas. Mumby earned his Ph.D. in coral reef remote sensing at the University of Sheffield in the United Kingdom.
