Barbara Eckersley, 67, has been charged with the murder of her mother, a celebrated environmentalist and palaeobotanist

This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

A woman accused of murdering her mother, famed environmental scientist Mary White, has been released on bail.

White was found dead in an aged care home in the town of Bundanoon, in the New South Wales southern highlands, on Sunday.

White, 92, was a celebrated environmentalist, palaeobotanist and researcher, and was named a member of the order of Australia in 2009 and awarded the Eureka prize in 1994.

White suffered from vascular dementia and resided in the Warrigal Bundanoon nursing home at the time of her death.

Police charged her daughter Barbara Eckersley, 67, with White’s murder on Wednesday.

News Corp reported police would allege White was killed by an overdose of medication.

Eckersley first appeared in Goulburn local court on Thursday, made no application for bail, and was held in custody overnight. Her matter appeared back before the court on Friday, and Eckersley was released on bail.

She was told she must reside at her current address, report to Southern Highlands police daily, surrender her passport, not approach any international airport or point of departure, and not go back to the Warrigal Care facility. The court also required a $20,000 surety.

White was widely respected for her conservation work, which focused on environment, biodiversity and climate change. She was born in Southern Rhodesia and raised in South Africa, but migrated to Australia in 1955. She later worked for the Australian Museum in Sydney, where she helped create a 12,000 specimen fossil collection. She lectured and authored books on environmental science since the 1980s.

She won the Eureka prize for her book After The Greening, which examined the history of Australia’s climate and the human influence on vegetation.

She said at the time she was humbled and honoured to receive the award: “Everything is interconnected and we must find and accept the place of humans in the overall scheme of things,” she said. “It is fundamental to the problems that we have today.”

A later work examining water resources in Australia and their links to animal and plant life, titled Running Down, was also short-listed for a Eureka prize in 2001.

One of her most significant achievements was the creation of the Falls Forest Retreat on NSW’s mid-north coast. The property, under White’s guidance, became a rainforest sanctuary and one of the “last remaining remnant pockets of Gondwana rainforest in the world”.

She described it as her “legacy to the nation and the planet” and said it was: “a small private contribution to restoring and maintaining the natural balance mechanisms that keep climatic conditions within parameters that are life-friendly for us and all other life with which we share the planet”.

Eckersley will return to court in October.