Philip James Wallis 5th March 1982 – 2nd February 2018

Dr Phillip Wallis was an interdisciplinary scholar with particular expertise in designing and facilitating collaborative research for improved water and environmental governance and sustainability outcomes.

Phil was born on 5 March 1982. He is survived by his mother, Jeannette, an older brother and two sisters and their families. Phil was married to Beth with two sons Archer (5) and Hugo (3) along with a large network of personal and professional friends and colleagues, all of whom mourn his untimely passing on 2 February 2018. This article focusses on Phil’s professional life and achievements. Specifically, his significant contribution to environmental management and interdisciplinary research for sustainable futures in the areas of water governance and planning (Wallis and Ison, 2011), climate change adaptation (Bosomworth et al. 2017; Wallis et al. 2017, 2014), social learning (Ison, Collins, and Wallis 2015; Wallis, Ison, and Samson 2013), systems thinking (Ison, Russell, and Wallis 2009) and developmental agriculture (Ison et al. 2014).

Phil graduated with first-class honours¹ from a Bachelor in Environmental Science 2000–2003 with majors in Geography and Chemistry and thereafter won a prestigious scholarship to continue at Monash University for his doctoral studies (2004–2007) at the Centre for Green Chemistry, Monash University. He completed his PhD entitled ‘Abiotic Catalysis: The Nexus between Soil Chemistry and Catalysis in Organic Chemistry’ within the emerging field of green chemistry in 2007 (Wallis et al. 2006).

Phil achieved much in the 10 years of his post-PhD professional life: it is indeed impressive and stands as a legacy worthy of celebration.

Following his PhD, Phil moved his focus and skills to the interface between the natural and social sciences, first within Uniwater (2007–2010), a joint initiative of The University of Melbourne and Monash University, and later within the Systemic Governance Research Program (SGRP) in the Sustainability Institute at Monash University (2011–2016). As a Research Fellow, he began to develop his skills as an interdisciplinary social scientist and became known for his expertise in process design, documentation and analysis in collaborative research and stakeholder engagement and for his excellent facilitator skills. He was also keen to develop research with people, rather than on them. In these programmes, Phil worked closely with Professor John Langford (Uniwater, University of Melbourne), Professor Ray Ison (Uniwater and SGRP, Monash University), Professor Lee Godden (University of Melbourne), Professor Stuart Bunn (Griffith University) and Professor Dave Griggs (Monash Sustainability Institute).

In one of his most recent papers, Phil described himself as an ‘applied, transdisciplinary researcher and natural resource management practitioner’ (Ayre, Wallis, and Daniell 2018). His contribution to the complex issue of water governance in Australia and internationally, and in particular, within the Murray Darling Basin, was highly significant (Ison, Collins, and Wallis 2015; Wallis et al. 2015; Wallis and Ison 2011a; Wallis and Ison, 2011; Wallis, Nally, and Langford 2011; Wallis et al. 2014). Phil worked on collaborative research linking social and natural sciences to address issues of biodiversity and climate change (Godden, Ison, and Wallis, 2011), with the Goulburn-Broken Catchment Management Authority (CMA) and the Murray Darling Basin Authority (2008–2014) and co-facilitated of the Lonsdale Systems Group, involving more than 50 people seeking to improve the governance of Natural Resource Management (NRM) in Victoria (2014–2018). He was Lead Researcher on the Southern Slopes Climate Change Adaptation Research Partnership, working with nine regional NRM agencies (including five Victorian Catchment Management Agencies) to plan for climate change (2013–2016). He was also the Primary Researcher on the Victorian Centre for Climate Change Adaptation Research project, ‘Implementing Adaptation’ (Millin et al. 2013; Rance and Wallis 2013). Phil also worked as part of a collaborative research team in the Cooperative Research Centre for Water Sensitive Cities on a investigating strategies for influencing the political dynamics of decision-making (Laing and Wallis 2016). In all of these professional roles, Phil worked with CMAs, government agencies and communities to enhance climate change adaptation capacity (Rubenstein et al. 2016).

Phil was active in collaborative research internationally, and a number of his papers were produced with members of the Applied Systems Thinking in Practice Group at the Open University in the United Kingdom. In research funded by the Australian Government Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (formerly AUSAID) and the CSIRO, Phil visited Senegal and oversaw much of the Monash University–CSIRO collaboration which focussed on ‘food security as a learning system’. In this collaboration, he forged close working relationships with Drs Jocelyn Davies, Yeheyis Maru and Peter Carberry (now Deputy Director General – Research at International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics ICRISAT) (Reichelt et al. 2016). He was also part of a visit to South Africa and the creative design of a co-inquiry process with members of AWARD (running the USAID RESILIM-O project)² for a conference held by the South African Water Research Commission (see also Ison and Wallis 2017).

Phil demonstrated strong leadership qualities in his chosen field, most notably as a leader in the Australian Water Governance Research Initiative, funded by the Freshwater Resources & Biodiversity National Climate Change Adaptation Research Facility (NCCARF), as a Member of the Victorian Government Department of Economics Land, Water and Planning (DELWP) Environmental-Economic Accounting Implementation Working Group (2016–2017) and through his role as an Inaugural Fellow of the Peter Cullen Trust (PCT) (2010). He was very proud to be a Fellow of the PCT and maintained a strong connection to the network of 122 Fellows representing leaders in the water and environment sector in Australia. He was a founding member of the PCT Fellows’ Coordinating Committee and played a pivotal role in organising important events such as the annual get-togethers of past Fellows and the Trust’s 5-year anniversary event. He also volunteered his time to support website development and was valued for his contribution to strategy development and facilitation within the Fellows Network. The Board and staff of the Trust have also greatly respected and valued Phil’s contributions and friendship (Peter Cullen Water & Environment Trust, 2018) over the past decade. The high regard with which he is held within the PCT network is testimony not only to his quiet leadership skills, but also his integrity, quiet but impish humour and the understanding he gained, and helped to develop, of the complex policy and practice issues that confront water, river, climate change, biodiversity, food security and natural resource governance in Australia and beyond.

In recent years, Phil and his colleagues developed a theoretical complexity to their work that broadened and deepened scholarship in water management and governance to lead to new insights into the practical politics of doing sustainability work in the Anthropocene (Ison, Alexandra, and Wallis 2018; Ison, Russell, and Wallis 2009). For example, Phil wrote about enactments (Wallis et al. 2017) or performance (Ison and Wallis 2011) of water planning to emphasise the way debates and issues are ‘framed’ (Ibid) through particular ontological and epistemological lenses (Reichelt et al. 2016). This work of ‘reframing’ has been recognised as critical to finding ways to effectively manage for sustainability (Hackmann, Moser, and St. Clair 2014) in a climate change world (Ison et al. 2011).

Phil’s research has had a significant international and national impact. Some of this impact is measured by his excellent publication record of 50 scientific publications and over 450 citations. Also in measures of esteem in terms of him being invited to be an Associate Editor of the Australasian Journal of Water Resources, a role that he fulfilled with great rigour and judgement. However, we suggest that much of it can be measured by the legacy of leadership, collegiality, creative insight and contribution to policy and practice change.³ In all Phil’s work, he took a reflexive, social learning (Wallis, and Samson 2013) approach characterised by participatory action research methods and collaborative principles. He always worked openly and generously with others as he did this, thereby ‘walking the talk’ of engaged research practice. He did this by carefully co-creating research practice (Ayre, Wallis, and Daniell 2018) to address issues of critical importance to communities, government and industry alike. He also engaged with his own practice as an applied researcher in a humble, good humoured and ethically rigorous way (Patterson et al. 2013).

After a decade in academia, Phil was enthusiastic about taking on a new challenge in 2016 as the Project Manager and major writer of the VCMC ’s Catchment Condition and Management Report (the Report) for the Victorian Catchment Management Council (2016–2018). In this role, he tabled the Report in the Victorian Parliament in November 2017. Whilst at VCMC, Phil demonstrated high-level negotiation skills and worked with senior staff including Executive Directors and Directors and CEOs of Catchment Management Authorities (http://www.vcmc.vic.gov.au/pdf/CCMR_Report_2017.pdf). Over this period, he maintained his involvement in the Lonsdale Systems Group, working closely with each of the four pilots that were generated from the initial systemic co-inquiry and conducted with funding from the Victoria Government Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning. He was particularly welcomed into the ‘Humans to Nature’ pilot project looking at how urban residents could be more effectively drawn into biodiversity conservation (see: https://gardensforwildlifevictoria.com/affiliates/).

Phil’s early death is a great loss to Victoria, Australia and the world. Patricia Geraghty, Executive Officer of VCMC, said of Phil:

[he] endeared himself to the VCMC staff, members and the many stakeholders who were involved in providing information for the report. He was a brilliant mind, a congenial team member, and an admirable human being

An enduring memory that colleagues share of Phil is of him quietly listening to group discussion at a PCT fellows event. Listening maybe also doodling and carefully assimilating all the points being discussed at the time. Then, rising from his chair and grasping a pen he would approach the whiteboard. People who had worked with him previously then knew that some real insights and circuit breakers were going to emerge! As Phil would speak articulately about the issue and clearly represent the complexity of the situation at hand, both in systems diagrams and in words. In his unique and gentle style, he would suggest and elaborate, not explain or dictate, and then deftly guide the discussion into clearer waters!

In a professional eulogy or testimonial delivered at his funeral by invitation, friend, colleague and mentor, Ray Ison set out to leave those present with a stronger sense of Phil the professional (see https://rayison.blogspot.com.au/2018/02/eulogy-phil-wallis-5th-march-1982-2nd.html).

Phil was an easy man to love because he made it so easy to reciprocate the legitimacy, the love, he granted each of us when we worked, collaborated, talked, facilitated, travelled, wrote, speculated and laughed together. There was no humbug about Phil. He was the real deal. In our final conversation he counselled me to go on asking challenging questions. This is an invitation I extend to you all on Phil’s behalf because we each contribute to the world that Archer, Hugo and others will inherit. Phil did more than his fair share; we owe it to him to continue his legacy.

Phil once reflected to a group of friends and colleagues, ‘I did things early. I did my PhD early. I got married early and I bought a house early’. This insightful comment reflects how motivated, generous and clear-sighted Phil was. How he got on with things; how he plunged in, amid the messiness and the complexity; riding the rapids; ‘tapping fresh currents’ (Patterson et al. 2013) and offering creative solutions and ways forward to arrive at new ways of doing and understanding. He will be sorely missed; however, his family, friends and colleagues take great inspiration from his legacy as it helps them to navigate with grace and optimism through those rapids and currents.

Notes

1. Honours thesis – ‘Studies of humic model precursors for carbon sequestration through iron-promoted oxidative coupling’.

2. AWARD’s RESILIM-Olifants Programme focuses on resilience-building in the transboundary Olifants River Basin, shared between South Africa and Mozambique (see: http://award.org.za/project/resilience-in-the-limpopo-basin).

3. Phil was a successful and motivated communicator in relation to the issues which his work addressed as can be gauged from the following links: Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com.au/citations?user=aKG7v9sAAAAJ&hl=en Blog: https://philipwallis.wordpress.com Twitter: https://twitter.com/philipwallis?lang=en Articles in ‘The Conversation’: https://theconversation.com/profiles/philip-wallis-1153/articles.