Summary: Stephen Sutton has been an invertebrate ecologist for 40 years, with a particular interest in tropical forest insects. He has been one of the pioneers of upper canopy research in rainforests. He has been active in environmental consultancy since the mid 1980’s. He has wide experience of planning and managing scientific field surveys and research programmes for major NGO’s and parastatal bodies such as the Royal Society, UK. He has written or edited 7 books and published 65 papers/ articles. He has organised 2 major international conferences and acted as senior editor of 3 conference publications.
Languages: French; reading, writing & spoken
– OK for living & travelling
Italian; “
“
“ - OK, worked 1 year in Italy
Bahasa Melayu;- bahasa pasar spoken enough to instruct field crews
and talk to kampong people
Research Qualifications:
D.Phil (=PhD) in the Ecology of Terrestrial Isopods (woodlice or
slaters). Developed a research team of PhD students at Leeds and
carried out a long-term study of the population dynamics of woodlice in
a sand dune ecosystem which produced many papers. Meanwhile, feeling drawn
by the challenge of research on insects in the upper canopy of tropical
rainforest, in 1974 he joined an expedition to Zaire and made the first
quantitative study of insects in the upper canopy using traps. As Project
Director for tropical forest science for Operation Drake 1978-1980 he was
able to develop this work at 3 sites in the main rainforest blocs around
the world. Subsequently he has continued to publish papers on canopy insects
and to review methods of access and research priorities. He participated
in the Sulawesi (Indonesia) phase of Operation Drake, gaining valuable
research data on canopy insects. In the late 1980’s he moved his
research to Danum Valley in Sabah and supervised a PhD and an MSc on beetles
and butterflies as indicators of forest disturbance. Since childhood
he has been interested in the life histories and distribution of moths
and butterflies, and in 1988-9 acted as senior editor and publisher of
a 380 page book on a regional fauna, The Moths & Butterflies of Yorkshire
(UK).
Environmental Survey Development and Management:
A new phase began in 1978 and 79 when he organised the invertebrate
component of the Brunei Muzium’s survey of the Ulu Temburong area of
Brunei. This work was one strand of activity leading to the gazetting of
much of the area as a National Park in the 1990’s and the establishment
of the Kuala Belalong research station.
Similarly, the survey work he helped plan for the Morowali area
of Sulawesi in 1980 led eventually to the area being declared a National
Park.
In 1983 he was seconded to Operation Raleigh by Leeds University
for 2 years to become Director of Research for this round the world venture
to give 4,000 young adults an opportunity for personal development while
carrying out science and community tasks in challenging parts of the world.
His team found and shipped out 300 science team leaders to 30 countries
in 4 years. The team leaders were largely academics wanting teams of assistants
to carry out 3 month projects. From this he learnt a great deal about
organising and motivating scientists and the criteria for successful survey
work.
Consultancies:
Because of knowledge gained of tropical wildlife, he was asked in
1986 to act as consultant in the making of the TV series ‘The Living
Planet’, the second of David Attenborough’s magnum opera.
In 1987 he was retained for 1 month by Merlewood Estates Lts to
advise on the management and development of the 8K ha Shipstern Reserve
in Belize.
Also in 1987 he was an EIA consultant to Cremer and Warner in the
UK assessing the suitability (from the point of view of disturbance
of important wildlife) of 4 sites as burial grounds for low-level nuclear
waste. This was a lesson not only in wildlife surveying but also
of the socio-economic implications of government action (local residents
were terrified, probably with good reason, that having a nuclear dump on
their doorsteps would do nasty things to their house prices). The awareness
he gained from this exercise is relevant, he feels, to the need to think
of the socio-economic consequences of prescriptions for wildlife conservation
in Klias and Loagan Bunut.
From 1989-1994 he was on the Board of Consultants of the International
Scientific Support Trust, a UK based charity providing opportunities for
young people to travel abroad to carry out scientific and community tasks.
It is now known as Trekforce and has a base in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah and
he still acts as an advisor.
Working on a consultancy basis, in 1990 he became Research Coordinator
of the SE Asia Rainforest Research Programme (RS-SEARRP) of the Royal Society
of the UK (Britain’s de facto National Academy of Science). Splitting
his time equally between the UK and Sabah, he built up this successful
programme for 10 years, and was responsible for supervising the distribution
of some GBP100K per year in the way of aid funds to environmental research
initiatives in SE Asia (most of the money being directed to Danum Valley
Research Centre in Sabah, but RS-SEARRP had projects in W. Malaysia, Indonesia
and Thailand as well).
This year (2003) he has become Consultant for E Asia for the Global
Canopy Programme, an NGO based in Oxford, UK seeking to promote forest
canopy science worldwide.
Relevant Employment:
Lecturer & Senior Lecturer in the School of Biological Sciences,
University of Leeds UK 1966 – 1990
Other relevant posts:
-European Science Foundation: Member of the Steering Committee,
Tropical Canopy Research Programme 1992-1999
-President, Yorkshire Naturalists’ Union, UK 1990
-Council Member Yorkshire Wildlife Trust 1976-1980
-Chairman of Hetchell Wood Nature Reserve, Yorkshire, UK 1970-78
(when he learnt how to write a management plan)
-RS-SEARRP, senior advisor to the Senior Scientist at Danum Valley
Field Centre.
-Visiting Research Fellow, 1998 to present, Institute of Tropical
Biology and Conservation, Universiti Malaysia Sabah. He provides a link
between the Institute and the international science research community