John Coulter, MD

Dr. Coulter is the National Vice-President of Sustainable Population Australia (SPA) (www.population.org.au). Dr. Coulter’s career has been a mix of medical research, environmental activism and lecturing, and politics. In 1987, he was elected as a Democrat Senator for South Australia. He was leader of the party, 1990-1993. While in the Senate he introduced the first legislation in the Australian Federal Parliament to control the use of CFCs and the first legislation to protect threatened species. In 1989, he initiated a Senate Inquiry into Climate Change. He has run major conferences on Climate Change, starting with a national conference in Adelaide in 1986, as well as conferences on population and environmental sustainability. Dr. Coulter has been active in the conservation movement for over 50 years. He was a founding member of the Conservation Council of South Australia (1971) and former President (1984), Councillor of the Australian Conservation Foundation 1973-1990 and from 2003 to the present and a former Vice President. He recognised early that population growth was one of the key drivers of environmental deterioration and in 1971 helped form ZPG Australia.