John H. Lawton

Sir John Hartley Lawton (born 24 September 1943) is a British ecologist, RSPB Vice President, President (former Chair) of the Yorkshire Wildlife Trust, President of The Institution of Environmental Sciences, Chairman of York Museums Trust and President of the York Ornithological Club.

He has previously been a trustee of WWF UK In October 2011, he was awarded the RSPB Medal. followed by a PhD in 1969. He belonged to University College.

In October 1999, he was appointed the Chief Executive of NERC, retaining an honorary professorship at Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine. Following his retirement from NERC in March 2005, he was appointed Chairman of the Royal Commission on Environment Pollution from 1 April 2005, and was reappointed for a second three-year term in 2008.

His interests have focused on the population dynamics and biodiversity of birds and insects, with emphasis over the last decade on the impacts of global environmental change on wild plants and animals. He was instrumental in establishing The Royal Society for the Protection of Bird's strategy for protecting landscapes. He has made major contributions to environmental NGOs, including a five-year period as Chairman of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds and a trustee of WWF-UK.

Lawton has been outspoken on the issue of global warming and is reported to have said, in the context of Hurricane Katrina:

The increased intensity of these kinds of extreme storms is very likely to be due to global warming… If this makes the climate loonies in the States realize we've got a problem, some good will come out of a truly awful situation.

On 2 November 2019, he appeared on the podcast Trees A Crowd with David Oakes.

Honours and awards President's Gold Medal of the British Ecological Society (1987) CBE (1997) Japan Prize (2004) Knight Bachelor (2005) Ramon Margalef Prize in Ecology (2006) Foreign Associate, US National Academy of Sciences (2008)