Dr Arthur Harrold (1918-2012) was a highly qualified man with a range of practical professional experiences. He lived in Noosa for over 40 years and there, but also throughout Australia, he became renowned for his conservation work. He has clearly been the founding father of conservationism for the Sunshine Coast. Since the early 1960s he, supported by his wife Marjorie, had been in the vanguard of the movement that eventually led to the creation of the Noosa National Park and the Cooloola National Park. Partly at least because of his university training, he did not enter conservation debates uninformed. He was capable of generating meticulously researched databases emphasising the richness of the natural environment of Noosa. He used those data to telling effect in a number of forums and gradually, on the basis of great intellect and dogged determination, achieved victories of regional and national significance against considerable odds. He was a man who taught the Sunshine Coast and Australia that the protection of treasured natural environments is vital. He was cultured and rightly, increasingly recognised for his outstanding achievements.