Ross Dowling is Foundation Professor of Tourism, Faculty of Business & Law, Edith Cowan University, in Western Australia. Ross helped co-found Ecotourism Australia in 1991 and is a long standing Director having served as Vice President and Treasurer. He is currently a member of Ecotourism Australia’s Executive & Finance Committee, the Conference Committee, and is the Chair of its Awards Committee.

Ross champions ecotourism in WA, where he is Chair of the Forum Advocating Cultural and Eco Tourism (FACET), nationally (on the board of Ecotourism Australia), and internationally through his positions as Executive Board Member of the Indian Ocean Tourism Organization and Advisor to the UNESCO Global Network of National Geoparks.
           
He conducts international research in ecotourism and in recent years he has co-authored or co-edited a number of books on the subject. They are Ecotourism, Ecotourism Policy and Planning, Natural Area Tourism, Wildlife Tourism and Geotourism. All have been published in the UK and two have been translated into Chinese, one into Persian and others published in India.

His key passion is to foster ecotourism so that it will serve both the environment and people (individuals, communities and governments) in a fully sustainable manner.