Ian Fraser ‘Plants and Animals: the eternal partnership'. Alison McKenzie Memorial Lecture

Alison McKenzie was passionate about both plants and animals, so it seems appropriate to explore some of the numerous and wonderful ways in which these two major strands of life are inextricably intertwined. Alison loved stories and this exploration will follow some quirky and unexpected byways as well as the more obvious paths; and Alison would have been relieved that neither snakes nor leeches get a mention today.

Ian Fraser (born 1951) is an Australian naturalist, conservationist and author, based in Canberra, where he arrived from Adelaide in January 1980. Since 1997 he has presented a fortnightly natural history show on Canberra ABC Radio, and teaches bird and other natural history courses to adult students at the ANU Centre for Continuing Education. He has been running the educational Environment Tours program - natural history bus-based tours throughout Australia - in association with the Canberra environment movement since 1984, and more recently has worked for Chris Carter of Time Travel Australia leading natural history tours to South America.

Ian was awarded the Australian Plants Award by the Australian Native Plants Society in 2001, and the Australian Natural History Medallion in 2006. In 2011 his book A Bush Capital Year, written with artist Peter Marsack, was awarded a Whitley Certificate for Best Regional Zoology by the Royal Zoological Society of NSW. Since 2002 he has written a monthly essay on birds for Gang-gang, the Newsletter of the Canberra Ornithologists Group. He has served on the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) Natural Resources Management Advisory Committee (and its various predecessors), advising the ACT government on biodiversity issues, since 1984, and has chaired it since 2005. He is partnered to journalist and ABC local radio presenter Louise Maher.