Fraser Bradbury is the Forest and Environmental manager at Westacre Estate, managing 1500ha of close to nature forestry, wood pasture and land in transition to nature recovery, helped by a herd of White Park cattle.

Fraser has experience of restoring ancient woodlands and wood pastures including managing the initial reintroduction of grazing into Savernake forest and undertaking the first wood pasture restoration work in the forest.

In 2018 Elliot combined his love for nature and technology and founded Ecologi which has helped 25,000 businesses fund high-integrity climate solutions within the UK and abroad, such as protecting large swathes of Amazon rainforest and the creation of wildflower meadows in Scotland. Since handing over the CEO baton, he went on to advising climate startups and nature non-profits.

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During this time the international goal to secure 30% of land and sea for nature by 2030 was committed to by over 190 nations. Elliot stopped what he was doing to see how he could help with the goal directly and helped cofound 30x30 UK, a new non-profit finding new ways to get nature funded.
 

Professor Alastair Driver is one of the UK’s best-known conservationists and is cited in “Who’s Who” for influence and distinction in the field of environmental conservation.

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He has enjoyed a long and distinguished career for nearly 50 years, including serving as national Head of Conservation for the Environment Agency for 15 years and Director of Rewilding Britain for 8 years.

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He is now the Senior Advisor for the Global Rewilding Alliance and a specialist consultant in rewilding and nature recovery, which includes acting as a Specialist Advisor for Heal Rewilding and for Broughton Sanctuary in Yorkshire. He continues to play a key role in influencing government policy at the highest level and advising on large rewilding initiatives across the UK and increasingly so, internationally.

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Alastair also holds several pro bono roles, including Hon Prof at the University of Exeter, Specialist Advisor for River Action UK and Natural England Landscape Advisory Panel member.

As the rewilding ranger at Heal Somerset, Daniel Hill manages the site’s monitoring and land management programs. You can find him surveying for signs of beavers, co-ordinating volunteer work parties removing barbed wire, or working with partners to deliver the hydrological restoration plan, amongst a huge variety of other tasks.

Dan’s passion for nature was sparked as a child growing up on an organic small holding in rural south Wales watching red kites soar above. His love of rewilding developed through volunteering with the RSPB on the Somerset Levels after completing a degree in Mathematical Sciences. 

Sara King manages and coordinates the development of the Rewilding Network - the first of its kind in Britain. Her role focuses on engaging with Network members and leading their strategy to upscale rewilding. Sara is also working on data collection, mapping projects and setting up connections across Britain to help facilitate knowledge exchange. 

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Sara has a strong background in rewilding, biodiversity monitoring and assessment, species reintroductions, land management and restoration plans. 

With over 20 years’ experience in impact-driven, nature-focused partnerships, Nicky has worked across sectors to design and scale high-impact collaborations between business, government, and civil society — spanning social innovation, regenerative business, and tech-for-good entrepreneurship. Alongside her work at 30x30 UK, she is the founder of Nature’s Voice, a future-focused initiative supporting regenerative leadership and governance that centres the living world.

Nicky is part of the alumni network of the Women Leading Change programme at the University of Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership, and has led award-winning partnership campaigns at both national and international levels.

Alister Scott is driven by the question of how we make enough big change happen quickly enough.

Passionate about the great outdoors since his first job as a sailing instructor in the west of Ireland and having his 1988 plan for nature recovery fully implemented on one of the outdoor centres where he worked in Fermanagh, Alister is now executive director at the Global Rewilding Alliance, chair of the comms charity Rewriting Earth, where the mission is to engage the disengaged, co-author of The Little Book of Making Big Change Happen and honorary professor at the UCL Institute for Sustainable Resources.

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Jan Stannard is co-founder and acting CEO of the national rewilding charity Heal, which launched in March 2020 with the ambitious aim to rewild a site in every English county.

Jan moved into the charity sector after 40 years’ in business, having served on company boards in the strategic communications and digital marketing sectors.

She first became active in campaigning for wildlife in 2015 when she set up a local swift group, which has since organised the installation of hundreds of swift boxes.

She has a BA in Geography and a first-class honours degree in Psychology.

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James Bullock is a senior researcher at the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, where he works across a range of subjects concerning environmental change and nature recovery.

He is particularly concerned with the climate and nature crises and the multiple strategies to address them. He works in particular on rewilding and ecological restoration, and their central role in bringing back biodiversity and ecosystem services in our degraded landscapes.

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Mya-Rose Craig is a 22-year-old British-Bangladeshi birder, race activist and environmentalist campaigning for equal access to nature, to stop biodiversity loss and climate change, and to ensure global climate justice, all of which she believes are closely interlinked. 

Mya-Rose's passion for birds and wildlife are self-evident with her coming across the screen as a knowledgeable and natural presenter. In June 2022 Mya-Rose’s book Birdgirl was published by Vintage Books and has recently been nominated for the Jhalak Prize. In it she shares the impact on her own mental health of growing up with a mother affected by severe bipolar disorder, how nature helped them cope as a family and how she found joy and her voice through birding. Follow Mya-Rose on www.birdgirluk.com, X @Birdgirl.UK and Instagram @birdgirluk

Rob Farrington has spent his whole working career fighting for nature in Dorset.

After spells with both the RSPB and National Trust he has the envious title of head of wilder landscapes at Dorset Wildlife Trust. The role is just as exciting as the name suggests; Rob’s team support Dorset’s landowners transition to wilder management and to help do this Rob uses two of the Trusts rewilding sites; Wild Woodbury and Lyscombe, to inspire and inform.

In 2022 Rob and the team delivered one of the first ever stage-0 river restorations in England on the majority of the headwaters of the river Sherford. In the evenings Rob plays the watering can in a local band.

Naomi Johns is a bird of prey management specialist with the ambition to monitor and restore populations of declining bird species in the UK. Currently the Centre & Operations Manager for The Bird of Prey Project, a registered charity and visitor centre in Bath, Naomi is responsible for co-ordinating the organisations operations, strategy and cavity nesting species programme.

The Bird of Prey Project’s mission is to restore habitats, conserve birds of prey and make wildlife education accessible and Naomi says she has been captivated by birds of prey since she was a child and has spent most of her life trying to see the world from the perspective of a raptor.

Brittany Maxted is a conservationist and research ornithologist working for Dorset-based charity Birds of Poole Harbour. She oversaw the reintroduction of breeding Ospreys to southern England in partnership with the Roy Dennis Wildlife Foundation, and is now spearheading the restoration of other lost bird species to the region, including the Red-billed Chough.

Through involvement in Birds of Poole Harbour's extensive public engagement programme she helps bring conservation stories to a new audience and has witnessed first-hand the social and economic benefits of nature recovery.

Brittany studied Biological Sciences at the University of Oxford and is currently a PhD student at Bournemouth University, investigating the mechanisms and patterns underpinning population recovery and recolonisation. She believes passionately that research findings should be used proactively to inform positive conservation interventions.

As Director of Providence Ecological, Alex Sams provides ecological support and advice across a wide range of development projects with the aim to make development better for people and nature. Providence Ecological also enables non-profit organisations such as Heal to access low-cost ecological support and technology. 

With an interest in functional ecology, restoration and bioacoustics, Alex was incredibly excited to help Heal as soon as they obtained their first site near his home in Somerset. He helped to develop the initial scope of ecological baselining surveys at Heal and became a voluntary advisor on Heal’s Land Management Advisory Group. 

His company, Providence Ecological have now completed the bat and bird baseline surveys at Heal and are currently compiling those reports. 

Alex is also a wildlife photographer in his spare time and contributed to the making of the Heal the Land film, whilst also providing ecological support and advice to help avoid and mitigate any disturbance to wildlife during the making of the film. 

Karen Skeates is an artist, science educator, vegetable grower, seed saver and garden rewilder who is proud to now have all three species of UK newts, and, at long last, hedgehogs in her garden. As an artist/maker Karen is interested not only in the creation of material objects but in collaboratively fashioning a space where the immaterial can emerge: voices, feelings, stories, music. Things unexpected and surprising that may step into the ring of firelight and find a welcome when shared from person to person.

Karen says ‘gathering round the fire has always been a way for humans to weave worlds and make meaning together. In our fragmented times Roots & Sparks is chance for us to become a little more reacquainted with this ancient habit’.