Peter Scanes: 40 years in marine ecology

“I’m going to work to stop that kind of thing from happening in the future.”

These are the words of twelve-year-old Peter Scanes after seeing his local creek, the creek he had explored and fished in as a boy, destroyed by the sewer authority.

More than 50 years later, Dr Peter Scanes has done just that.

He’s led a team of scientists studying and advising government on the better management of NSW estuaries.

His achievements have been acknowledged recently with him taking out the prestigious Australian Marine Sciences Association 2022 Jubilee Award in recognition of his outstanding contribution to the understanding of our NSW estuaries, the first government scientist to receive such an accolade.

After more than 40 years working as a marine and estuarine ecologist to better understand and manage the ecology of NSW estuaries, Peter retired in March this year.

We spoke to Peter to learn a little more about what drove him to pursue a career in marine sciences and what he learnt from his career in estuarine ecology.

When asked his thoughts on receiving the Jubilee Award, Peter responded by focussing on the future of our estuaries, rather than his achievement.

“It’s wonderful to get that level of recognition. I think it’s really important that it gives me an opportunity to promote the work of MEMS to manage our estuaries better,” he said.

Peter completed a Bachelor of Science (majoring in Botany and Marine Science) at Sydney University, followed by an Honours on intertidal seaweed, and Masters on limpets of the Sydney area.

Whilst undertaking this further study, he was employed as research assistant with Professor Tony Underwood. Tony went on to be a mentor to Peter for the following decade. “He was the person I went back to, even after I stopped working with him, and said how can I do this better?” Peter said of his relationship with Dr Underwood.

After a couple of years researching the impact of hot water discharge on marine life in Lake Macquarie for NSW Fisheries, Peter joined the NSW State Pollution Control Commission (which later became NSW EPA). With EPA, Peter worked on monitoring the pollutants from sewerage outfalls after they were moved from the Sydney coastline to 4km offshore.

Almost a decade later, Peter was shocked to find that that the pollution levels coming out of estuaries often massively exceeded, “sometimes by a factor of more than a 100” that of the sewerage ocean outfalls.

Unsurprisingly, following this revelation, Peter turned his research efforts to estuaries.

Until his retirement in March 2022, working for NSW Planning and Environment (and its previous iterations), Peter led a team of more than 15 scientists to better understand our estuaries from a catchment perspective.

Like many marine scientists, there was one part of his research Peter enjoyed the most.

“Actually being out there,” he said. “Being out there involved in the collection of data, spending time outside, driving boats and diving. Getting out on the water and interacting with all the things that are out there.  Seeing and understanding, you really do learn a lot by just being out there.”

Peter was involved with the creation of the Marine Estate Management Strategy (MEMS) from its inception. He is a firm believer in the value of government agencies joining forces to tackle “wicked” problems to better manage our marine estate, our estuaries, beaches and oceans.

“MEMS encourages different agencies to work together for a common goal of protecting our marine estate…so that we have a clear and joint focus,” Peter said of MEMS, a 10-year NSW Government Strategy to address the greatest threats to the NSW marine estate that kicked off in 2018. “It’s much, much better than it used to be, it’s provided critically needed resources to tackle those problems,” he added.

But whilst being out on the water was the most fun element of his job, seeing his team’s monitoring efforts, “inform the development and implementation of policy to better manage estuaries” was one of the most satisfying parts of his career.

“To see all the work that we put in start to come to fruition in terms of data, plans and policy that was actually helping councils better manage their estuaries was deeply satisfying,” Peter said.

Peter’s advice to young people wanting to pursue a career in marine biology or environmental protection is optimistic.

“Follow your heart, get as much experience as possible and you will get satisfaction out of doing your job,” he says.

“It is a rewarding and satisfying career. You can actually make a difference.”

Congratulations to Peter on receiving this prestigious award and thank you for your contributions to the development and implementation of the NSW Marine Estate Management Strategy.