The 2025 Romeo Lahey Memorial Lecture was held on 5 April 2025.

Thanks to Professor Lindenmayer for his excellent lecture, to Brisbane City Council for contributing to venue costs, and to everyone who attended and made this event a great success.

Watch the Video on YouTube

2025 Romeo Lahey Memorial Lecture

Logging, lies and legacy: the ongoing battle for Australia’s forests

On 5 April 2025, David Lindenmayer, AO FAA, author of The Forest Wars, unveiled the dark secrets of logging in Australia’s native forests and explained why it must cease.

Download the PDF slideshow

Professor David Lindenmayer in a forest standing in front of a vehicle.

Award-winning Research

David’s research has been recognised through numerous awards, including the Eureka Science Prize (three times), Whitley Award (10 times), the Serventy Medal, and the Whittaker Medal. In 2024, he received the MacFarlane-Burnett Medal for Life Sciences from the Australian Academy of Sciences.

About Professor David Lindenmayer

Distinguished Professor of Ecology and Conservation Biology,Australian National University

David is a world-leading expert in forest and woodland ecology and conservation biology. He is among the world’s most productive and most highly-cited scientists and has published 49 books and 1505 scientific articles including more than 955 peer-reviewed papers in international scientific journals.

David Lindenmayer was an Australian Research Council Laureate Fellow from 2013–2018. He is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science, the Ecological Society of America, the Royal Zoological Society of NSW, and the American Academy of Sciences. He was appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) in 2014.

Listen to David speak on ABC radio

About the Romeo Lahey lecture

The Romeo Lahey Memorial Lecture honours the principal founder of the National Parks Association of Queensland (NPAQ), Romeo Lahey, who remained President for more than 30 years and was instrumental in convincing the Queensland Government to declare many of the state’s national parks gazetted up to the 1970s.Lahey was also co-founder of Binna Burra Lodge, located within the World-Heritage-listed Lamington National Park. Just one week after the then Queensland Governor, Sir John Goodwin, opened Brisbane City Hall, the inaugural meeting of the National Parks Association of Queensland was held in the Lord Mayor’s Reception Room on 15 April 1930. In recognition of this historical link, the NPAQ Romeo Lahey Memorial lecture will again be held at City Hall this year, on Saturday 5 April 2025.