Allen Axel Strom (c. 1914 – 23 March 1997) was an Australian

teacher A teacher, also called a schoolteacher or formally an educator, is a person who helps students to acquire knowledge, competence, or virtue, via the practice of teaching. ''Informally'' the role of teacher may be taken on by anyone (e.g. whe ...

and conservationist. He was an exponent of

environmental education Environmental education (EE) refers to organized efforts to teach how natural environments function, and particularly, how human beings can manage behavior and ecosystems to live sustainably. It is a multi-disciplinary field integrating discip ...

and was instrumental in the development of the

national park A national park is a nature park, natural park in use for conservation (ethic), conservation purposes, created and protected by national governments. Often it is a reserve of natural, semi-natural, or developed land that a sovereign state dec ...

and

nature reserve A nature reserve (also known as a wildlife refuge, wildlife sanctuary, biosphere reserve or bioreserve, natural or nature preserve, or nature conservation area) is a protected area of importance for flora, fauna, or features of geological or ...

system in New South Wales in the 1950s and 1960s.

Life

During the 1940s and 1950s Strom was a teacher at the Enmore Activity School and the

Broken Bay Broken Bay, a semi-mature tide-dominated drowned valley estuary, is a large inlet of the Tasman Sea located about north of Sydney central business district on the coast of New South Wales, Australia; being one of the bodies of water that separa ...

National Fitness Camp. He lectured for 11 years at Balmain Teachers College and founded the Caloola Club. In 1948 he became a member of the NSW Fauna Protection Panel, the forerunner of the National Parks and Wildlife Service, then in 1958 was appointed Chief Guardian of Fauna, working to expand the number of nature reserves and national parks in the state. He retired from the education department in 1971 but held executive positions in the Association of Environmental Education and other conservation organisations. After Strom's death in 1997, Allan Fox, another leading Australian conservationist, embarked on writing a Strom biography. However, Fox had only completed draft chapters of the biography when he died in 2013. In 2016, a group of 'Strom followers' located electronic versions of the drafts and prepared them as an e-book for public distribution. The book is titled ''Chief Guardian: The Life and Times of Allen Strom''. The Strom followers also located a hard copy manuscript of a book Allen Strom wrote in 1980 about nature conservation in New South Wales in the 1950s and 1960s, particularly his experiences as a Fauna Protection Panel member and as Chief Guardian of Fauna. The group of followers digitally transferred the manuscript into an e-book.

Honours and awards

* Honorary Life Member, NSW National Parks Association (1963) *

Australian Natural History Medallion The Australian Natural History Medallion is awarded each year by the Field Naturalists Club of Victoria (FNCV) to the person judged to have made the most meritorious contribution to the understanding of Australian Natural History. The idea origina ...

(1972) * Member of the

Order of Australia The Order of Australia is an honour that recognises Australian citizens and other persons for outstanding achievement and service. It was established on 14 February 1975 by Elizabeth II, Queen of Australia, on the advice of the Australian Gove ...

(AM) (1977) for services to conservation education * Environmental Educator of the Year (1981)

References

1910s births 1997 deaths Year of birth uncertain Australian conservationists Australian educators Australian naturalists Members of the Order of Australia People from Sydney 20th-century naturalists {{Australia-bio-stub