The Habitat Advocate

We have just been notified by IP Australia, the Australian Government’s official registry of intellectual property (that is, governing Australian trademarks, patents and designs, etc. by home grown Australians) that The Habitat Advocate branded logo (image above) has just been legally registered in Australia. 

On the record, this is from 30th September 2024. 

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So, we’re pretty happy with this, just quietly.  That’s why we’re happily informing the whole Planet! 🙂

A moment of indulgent reflection, if one may…

Well, it’s been a while for us.  

Steven John Ridd is the founder of The Habitat Advocate, an environmental conservation advocacy website, championing the cause of the rights of native habitat. 

Born in Melbourne, then having travelled on sabbatical, and then having relocated from renting in expensive eastern Sydney’s Randwick out to regional Katoomba in the natural Blue Mountains in 2001, I first registered the business name ‘The Habitat Advocate‘ with the then NSW Department of Fair Trading at Parramatta and the domain habitatadvocate.com.au together back on 10^th May 2006.  A date close to my heart. 

I have used the motto for The Habitat Advocate publicly since 2001, and the logo since 2006.

I felt I needed to protect both; this is especially since recently on Google, the use of the word ‘habitat’ and the term ‘habitat advocate’ have become popularised terms used by unrelated others for other purposes.  May be they just liked the concept.  I did back in 2001 before the trend, because of its genuine natural meaning that was understandable to many, rather than use more highfalutin scientific terms like ‘ecology‘.  

So, I commissioned this particular image to be painted by professional wildlife artist, Lyn Naismith, back in 2006 and I invaluably hold her original artwork.

I conceived and designed the logo to be of Australia’s most threatened endemic top order predator in the ecological food chain, the Tigerquoll.  I wanted to convey the message of the ongoing threats to native habitat.  So, I felt it necessary that the logo image convey reality of being threatened, rearing up on a dead tree branch with nowhere to retreat in its native habitat.  

Ecologically, if top order predator communities subsist healthily, then that is a positive signal that the broader localised ecology is healthy as well.  That is why we chose the Tigerquoll symbolically.

And we prefer the name Tigerquoll rather than the more lame academic descriptive term of ‘Spotted Tailed Quoll’.   That is, we wouldn’t suggest anyone try to pick up and cuddle a Tigerquoll without being ripped to shreds.   It’s just like we wouldn’t suggest anyone try to pick up and cuddle an Australian native Brush-tailed Possum with is strong sharp claws and territorialness.  Tigerquolls eat Brushtailed Possums for breakfast, if you know what I mean.

So, I sincerely thank Lyn for reading my sentiments in this respect exactly, to her credit.

The Tigerquoll remains an endangered native Australian Tigerquoll (Scientific name: Dasyurus maculatus).  Further reading:  http://www.environment.gov.au/cgi-bin/sprat/public/publicspecies.pl?taxon_id=75184

Bureaucratic wheels turn slowly, but now I own the image as a registered logo.  There is one held in captivity in Healesville Sanctuary, but since it is nocturnal, no visitors get to see it in its enclosure by day, and the sanctuary is closed by night.  Crazy idea that.