Three of this year’s Queen’s Birthday honours recipients have been recognised for their many years of service to diverse aspects of Australia’s fisheries-related industries and communities: freshwater research, game fishing and aquaculture

Philip Spencer Lake (known as Sam) was named an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) for distinguished service to conservation and the environment as an ecologist and freshwater scientist.

Sam Lake has served on numerous ecological advisory boards and panels and scientific societies, at a state, national and international level during his career, including a decade as the chief ecologist for the Cooperative Research Centre for Freshwater Ecology.

He has also worked as an ecological consultant, nationally and internationally, for both government and the private sector. In 2011, he was part of the team that prepared the Research Plan for Freshwater Diversity as part of the National Climate Change Adaptation Research Facility.

His own research has focused on ecological communities in aquatic systems, restoration ecology, exotic invaders and the ecology of freshwater crustaceans and fish.

Now based in Melbourne, he is an Emeritus Professor in the School of Biological Sciences at Monash University.

Grahame Allan Williams has been awarded a Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) for his service to the sport of game fishing. Based at Gymea Bay, south of Sydney, he is a life member and current president of the Game Fishing Association of Australia.

He has been an active advocate for the industry, and for the sustainability of fisheries resources, as a national and international delegate to a wide range of committees – from the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission to the Commonwealth Fisheries Grey Nurse Shark Recovery Team. He is also a founding director of the Australian Recreational Fishing Foundation, established in 2012.

Noel Reginald Herbst, from Mount Warren Park in Queensland, has been awarded a Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) for service to the Australian prawn-farming industry, and to his local community.

In 1986, he founded Gold Coast Marine Aquaculture (GCMA), which is one of Australia’s largest Black Tiger Prawn farming companies, marketing its produce as Gold Coast Tiger Prawns.

In 1993, he helped to found the Australian Prawn Farmer’s Association and has served on the association’s executive committee.

Since 2004 Noel Herbst has been actively involved in national research to domesticate the Black Tiger Prawn.

In 2010, GCMA was the first Black Tiger Prawn farm in the world to fully stock with juveniles from domestic brood stock rather than juveniles from wild-caught brood stock.

His prawns have collected a swag of gold medals, championship and food excellence awards in recent years. He was also a finalist in the 2012 Farmer of the Year awards.