Winner of 2017 John Holliday Student Conservation Award announced

24 Nov 2017

The NSW Department of Primary Industries (DPI) has announced the winner of the 2017 John Holliday Student Conservation Award at an event held at the Port Stephens Fisheries Institute this morning.

Joshua van Lier, Australian National University, won the award for his paper titled ‘Importance of soft canopy structure for labrid fish communities in estuarine mesohabitats’.

NSW DPI Director Fisheries Research, Dr Natalie Moltschaniwskyj, said the award aims to encourage post-graduate students to share their research findings on topics relevant to aquatic habitat management and fish conservation with the DPI Fisheries branch.

“The award was introduced in 1999 in honour of Dr John Holliday, a senior conservation manager who successfully pioneered the Department’s involvement in aquatic habitat and fish conservation issues,” Dr Moltschaniwskyj said.

“We received eight strong applications this year. It was great to see so many projects engaged in addressing knowledge gaps relevant to the management of NSW marine and freshwater environments.”

The award is open to post-graduate students who are enrolled at Australian universities and undertaking fisheries-orientated research in NSW.

“This year’s winner, Joshua van Lier, used visual surveys to identify whether different habitat types supported different fish communities and what aspects of those habitat types best predicted fish diversity in an estuary,” Dr Moltschaniwskyj said.

“Joshua discovered sponge and macroalgae habitats support their own unique fish communities, while soft coral supports what appears to be a subset of sponge-associated fish community.

“He also found that conducting a survey of canopy height may provide a quick and cost-effective surrogate monitoring method for evaluating fish diversity and determining the status of fish habitats.”

Joshua’s research earned him a $3000 cash prize as part of the award.

DPI Deputy Director General Fisheries, Geoff Allan, has announced that the John Holliday Student Conservation Award will be available again in 2018.

For more information or to view previous applications, visit the DPI website.

Media contact: Katie Foran (02) 6391 3686