ROSSLYN Beeby, the distinguished and highly respected science and environment writer for “The Canberra Times”, left the paper today with no formal farewell from management after almost nine years of service. 

Ms Beeby, a former deputy arts editor at the Melbourne “Age” and a Radio Australia journalist, has been responsible for breaking many local and national stories, and  in 2009 was awarded a Jefferson Fellowship by the US Congress-funded East-West Centre to study US climate change initiatives.

She is believed to have accepted troubled Fairfax’s voluntary redundancy offer.

Already, on “The Canberra Times”, the positions of literary editor, arts editor, features editor and day editor have been deemed “surplus” to requirements and are to be axed from the organisational chart by September as Fairfax consolidates its national editorial functions.

Whether the current incumbents of those positions, who have been told of the impending changes, or other staff members are made redundant remains unclear, but Beeby would appear to be the first of the many anticipated “negotiated redundancies”.

Last month, the paper’s Sydney-based owner Fairfax announced a major rescaling of its publishing business with wholesale staff cuts and a restructure of newsrooms in Canberra, Sydney and Melbourne. The editors-in-chief of “The Sydney Morning Herald” and “The Age” have subsequently left the business.