Ronald (Les) Heathcote graduated from the University College London in 1955, completing his Master degree in Nebraska as a Fulbright Scholar in 1959 and then subsequently his PhD at the Australian National University in 1963. From this research he published a book concerning historical settlement and environmental management, Back of Bourke (1965). Heathcote was a reader and lecturer in geography at the University College London (1962-66); from 1966 he was senior lecturer then Reader in Geography at Flinders University, South Australia and was the Flinders University representative on the SA Public Examinations Board (1968-79). He was a member of Council for the Institute of Australian Geographers and a member of the Australian Academy of Science’s National Committee for the Environment and its National Committee for Geography. Elected a Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia in 1981, Dr Heathcote was President of the Institute of Australian Geographers in 1985-6, and in 1989 received an Honours Award of the Association of American Geographers. From 1991 to 1997 he was a representative then chairman of the National Committee for Geography of the Australian Academy of Science. In 1997 Heathcote was awarded the Griffith Taylor Medal from the Institute of Australian Geographers.