Dr John Wamsley (born 1938) is an Australian environmentalist. He was the Prime Minister's Environmentalist of the Year for 2003. Wamsley is known for his attempt to set up a network of wildlife sanctuaries across Australia.[1]
Wamsley was born in Ourimbah, New South Wales in 1938. His passion for Australian wildlife was born when the seven-year-old Wamsley's family moved to a 67 hectare bushland block at Niagara Park. At age sixteen Wamsley became a trainee metallurgist with BHP. Dissatisfied with the job he became a labourer at BHP's Newcastle Steelworks and worked a second job renovating run down houses. By age 23 Wamsley was a millionaire. Approximately two years later Wamsley enrolled at the University of Newcastle. The thirty-year-old Wamsley graduated with a PhD in Mathematics and moved to Flinders University to lecture.[2] His doctoral thesis from the University of Queensland, at only 70 pages, is among the shortest theses in the library.[3]
June 1969 saw the purchase of a dairy farm at Mylor, South Australia, that was to become Wamsley's first sanctuary, Warrawong. Wamsley eradicated all feral plants and animals from the sanctuary and erected a surrounding fence to preserve the sanctuary's feral free state.[2] Wamsley entered the public eye when he attended a tourism awards ceremony wearing a hat made from the pelt of a dead feral cat. The ensuing controversy led to a change in the law, allowing feral cats to be legally killed.[4]
With the view to duplicating the success of the Warrawong wildlife sanctuary in South Australia, Earth Sanctuaries Limited (ESL) was floated on the Australian Securities Exchange in 2000.[5] At its peak, ESL had 11 prospective sanctuaries in three states accounting for 100,000 hectares. ESL was successful in some rewilding and ecosystem restoration projects. By pioneering feral-proof fencing, native Australian animals were successfully re-introduced where they were locally extinct. However, the company was not financially successful. ESL was wound up and delisted in 2005.[5] [6] The sanctuaries were sold, and some remain in operation, including Mount Rothwell Biodiversity Interpretation Centre[7] and several managed by the Australian Wildlife Conservancy.[8] ESL was the world's first publicly listed company whose business was conservation.[5] [9]