Palmer Newbould obituary

My former colleague Palmer Newbould, who has died aged 87, was a champion of scientific nature conservation, an innovative university teacher and a generous, warm-hearted man with broad interests.

His nature conservation work was based mainly in Northern Ireland, where wide-ranging conservation legislation was introduced only in 1965. Palmer served on two statutory committees in the 1970s - the Nature Reserves Committee and Ulster Countryside Committee - before becoming chairman of the Council for Nature Conservation and the Countryside in 1989, for which he was appointed OBE. He was also a Northern Ireland representative on the UK's Joint Nature Conservation Committee and served on Ireland's Nuclear Energy Board.