Associate Professor Alex Kutt
Director Ecosystem Management, Northern Territory Department of Environment, Parks and Water Security
See Associate Professor Kutt’s full research profile here.
alex.kutt@nt.gov.au
Research outputs linked to policy change and decision-making
Associate Professor Kutt’s major impacts through direct science contributions have been into the management of tropical savanna and temperate rangeland ecosystems, communities and species, particularly in Queensland. From the basis of integrating conservation planning and wildlife ecology with applied landscape management and biodiversity condition assessment, his impact has been more broadly engaged in decision-making at the intersection of community, threatened species and threat management with conservation outcomes.
- Conservation planning and management. Many years of research across tropical and temperate Australia, ranging from tropical rainforests and savanna, arid ecosystems, and temperate forests and woodlands, Associate Professor Kutt is an acknowledged expert and regular advisor and contributor to collaborative research, reviews and technical and program advisory committees for local, state and federal governments and their agencies. This has included, for example, terms with a variety of recovery teams (e.g., from the night parrot to the striped legless lizard), the Wet Tropics Management Authority’s scientific advisory committee, the Australian Government Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network, BirdLife Australia, the Cape York Peninsula biodiversity technical advisory group, and the Tropical Savanna Cooperative Research Centre (CRC). He has contributed to National Environmental Science Program Threatened Species Recovery Hub projects and has established a series of systematic long-term monitoring programs in northern Australia, mainly in the desert and Einasleigh uplands on Cape York Peninsula and more recently in the channel country.
- Sustainable resources management. The ability to provide science to policy-makers and managers transcends biogeographic boundaries, and over the last decades Associate Professor Kutt has been heavily involved as a technical lead for biodiversity planning assessments for the Queensland Government, helped develop of a comprehensive and systematic biodiversity monitoring program for Australian rangelands, undertook terrestrial reviews for the National Land and Water Resources Audit and was instrumental in trialling and testing the BioCondition framework and metrics for Queensland (Tropical Savanna CRC, Land and Water Australia, CSIRO, National Heritage Trust), a method that is used extensively to assess land and biodiversity condition for government and industry. Associate Professor Kutt has now applied his knowledge and experience in monitoring and threatened species management, for not-for-profit private land conservation organisations, via CSIRO and pro bono work for the Australian Wildlife Conservancy and more recently, in senior roles with Bush Heritage Australia and the Tasmanian Land Conservancy. Alex has also worked as a project director for large consulting firms, and has experience in risk, environment and development impact assessment.
Current academic employment and positions
- 2023–present: Director Ecosystem Management, Northern Territory Department of Environment, Parks and Water Security
- 2022–2023: Principal Technical Officer – Ecology, Queensland Department of Environment and Science
- 2020–2022: Conservation Science and Planning Manager, Tasmanian Land Conservancy
- 2017–2020: Senior Ecologist, North Australia, Bush Heritage Australia
- Associate Professor (adjunct), School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, The University of Queensland
- visiting research associate, School of BioScience, University of Melbourne.
Highest qualification
- 2004: PhD, School of Biological Sciences, James Cook University. Doctorate dissertation: Patterns in the distribution and composition of the vertebrate fauna of the desert uplands bioregion, Queensland.
Major prizes, medals and honours
- fellow of Australian Rural Leadership Foundation, Course 16 program.
My Projects
Current project
Completed project
NESP RLH, 2021-2027NESP, 2015-2021NERP, 2012-2015TRaCK, 2005-present
