Eva Bishop

environmentalist

For over twenty years Eva Bishop has worked at the meeting point of land, community and climate - to restore ecosystems, advance renewable energy, advocate for improved nature connection and promote agroecological practices. Her work includes establishing the charity Beaver Trust, nurturing climate-led education opportunities, and supporting small scale food growing. Eva champions urgent, systems-level change and encourages audiences to act for the long-term wellbeing for all.

Meg Avon

poet, activist, performance artist

In 2023, Meg Trump was worried about pollution of her local River Avon. She decided to turn her concern into art by marrying the entity she loved through hosting a public wedding to the river. During the ceremony she vowed to protect her beloved and encouraged all participants to do the same. This powerful act of love and protest captivated hearts and minds, and it was a start of Meg’s journey as an imagination activist.

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Currently Meg works with various organisations, academics and individuals to help raise awareness of the problem of river pollution and the urgent need to protect our bodies of water. Her story was told in the feature documentary "Rave On For The Avon", which celebrated her unique blend of art, activism, and humour. Meg has published a river-themed poetry book and hosted a series of sold-out poetry evenings, weaving together art, performance, and environmental consciousness.

Stephen Rutt

author and naturalist

Stephen Rutt is a naturalist and the award-winning author of five books. Despite falling into a river when he was two years old, he has never learned to swim. But water has fascinated him ever since. 

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His books – The Seafarers: A Journey Among Birds (2019), Wintering: A Season with Geese (2019), The Eternal Season: Ghosts of Summers Past, Present and Future (2021), The Saltmarsh Library (2025) and The Waterlands (2026) – tell the story of our environment and the species we share it with. The Seafarers won the Saltire Society’s first book award, Wintering was listed by The Times as one of the best nature books of 2019 and The Eternal Season was shortlisted for the Saltire Society’s best non-fiction book award. He has also been shortlisted for the Anne Brown essay prize and won the Royal Literary Fund’s JB Priestley award. His writing has been published in The Guardian, The Scotsman, Granta.com and Caught by the River.

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He lives in Dumfries, Scotland with his daughter and spends most of his time birdwatching in the rain.

James Aldridge

artist and researcher

James Aldridge is a visual artist, researcher and consultant based in Wiltshire, whose work explores the role of arts processes and multi-sensory experiences in place-based learning, highlighting their benefits for both human and ecological wellbeing. 
 
In 2020, James founded Queer River, an independent research project that brings together intersecting perspectives on the future of rivers. Through this initiative, he has collaborated with scientists, archaeologists and geographers to enable the development of creative community engagement projects, interactive interpretation, artwork for exhibition, and written work for publication.   
 
Previous partners have included Wessex Archaeology, the Environment Agency, the University of Glasgow, Bristol Medical School, Not Bourne Yesterday and the Norfolk Rivers Trust. 
 
James’ most recent work sees him researching beavers as makers, and re-makers of degraded river systems, through the development of arts-based mapping techniques. 

Molly Cheek

musician and campaigner for WWT

Molly was part of the team that saw toxic lead ammunition banned in Great Britain and brought wildlife flocking back to the centre of Bristol with a pop-up wetland in 2025. She uses the lenses of history and folklore to shift attitudes, inspire advocacy and encourage change for these often-misunderstood habitats.

This approach also blends into her music, where she performs under the name Old Moll. With a focus on stories that fell through the cracks in history, her songs celebrate the magic of place, the living history of water, and the inseparability of ourselves from the Earth.

Andy Dean

owner, The Natural Garden

For over twenty years, Andy Dean has worked across gardens, design and ecology, shaping landscapes that are both beautiful and ecologically functional. He built and ran a successful garden design and build practice, before stepping away from construction to focus more fully on the use of natural processes within managed land.

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His work has included serving as Associate Horticultural Producer on BBC One’s Garden Rescue, alongside developing education through workshops and courses, including for the Society of Garden and Landscape Designers (SGLD) CPD programme.

Andy now leads a consultancy centred on evidence-based, nature-led approaches to gardens and landscapes. His work focuses on understanding, communicating and applying how cultivated spaces can meaningfully contribute to nature recovery.

Professor Jeremy Biggs

chief executive of the Freshwater Habitats Trust

Professor Jeremy Biggs has led the development of Freshwater Habitats Trust since its creation in 1988. A highly experienced freshwater biologist, his research interests focus on applying evidence to the protection of freshwater biodiversity. Jeremy has a world-leading knowledge of the ecology of ponds, which in most European landscapes are the richest freshwater habitats.  

A Visiting Professor at Oxford Brookes University, Jeremy also leads several large partnership projects, including the Water Friendly Farming initiative. He played a key role in bringing the use of eDNA to the UK, was a member of the Research Advisory Group for the Defra Demonstration Test Catchments project and oversees Natural England’s national eDNA survey of Great Crested Newts.

Minni Jain

operations director, The Flow Partnership

Minni Jain works globally on community-led work on river restoration and management of floods and droughts using simple, successful, low-cost, traditional methods. She also runs Water Schools (www.waterschools.org) a platform for community sharing of successful water retention practices and action. Minni is also the co-author of The Language of Water (Synergetic Press/USA 2025) and ‘The Water of Consciousness’ in the book Living Waters: Pulse of the Planet (MLBD Publishers, India 2025)." 

Jon Burgess

chartered forester, Forestry Commission

Jon Burgess is a Chartered Forester and currently a resilience officer for the Forestry Commission where his work is about helping people understand the risks posed to our woods by climate change and helping to communicate possible solutions. He managed the first Forestry England site with wild free living beavers which led him to develop a workshop to help other manage woodlands in harmony to get the best of both. In his spare time he trains people on fruit tree pruning and is an examiner on veteran trees.

Jack Perks

wildlife cameraman and river conservationist

Jack Perks is a wildlife cameraman and river conservationist. Having spent the last decade working in rivers across the British Isles his passion is reptiles and fish. Hack has written books on these species, filmed them for various TV programmes over the years and worked with most major NGOs in nature conservation.

James Wallace

chief executive of River Action

James Wallace is a naturalist, archaeologist and social entrepreneur and has established enterprises ranging from renewable energy, regenerative agriculture and green finance to ecotourism, nature restoration and deep sea exploration. Prior to helping Charles Watson develop River Action into a national charity, James was CEO and Co-founder of Beaver Trust where he led the coalition to protect and live alongside native beavers. James campaigns to rescue Britain’s rivers using systemic, local solutions, working collaboratively in the freshwater emergency. He convenes national stakeholders, bringing together government, industry, NGO and community leaders to secure abundant, clean water and restore wildlife habitats, while holding polluters and regulators to account in the courts of public opinion and law.

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Tom Shopland

water and land stewardship advisor

Tom Shopland helps farmers, landowners and communities to design water retentive landscapes and restore resilience to flooding, drought and pollution issues. He blends ecological design thinking with practical land design and an awareness of the funding landscape to help farms and communities to design and deliver nature-based solutions. His approach is rooted in listening to the needs of the land and the people who care for it, valuing dialogue and progress over paperwork.  

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Based in the Surrey Hills, Tom’s experience spans roles with The South East Rivers Trust, The Farming and Wildlife Advisory Group (FWAG SW) and LDA Design. He holds an MA in Ecological Design Thinking from Schumacher College and trained as a rural facilitator at the Royal Agricultural University, Cirencester. Once an outdoor instructor and now a Trustee at Sayers Croft Outdoor Learning Centre, he weaves environmental education through his work, hoping more people will discover the mystical depths of a good puddle.

Dr Peter Stone

hydrologist and geomorphologist

Dr Peter Stone is an innovative hydrologist and geomorphologist whose work underpins the vision to restore the natural hydrology of Heal Somerset. He specialises in helping rewilding and landscape-recovery projects which re-establish surface water flow processes, correcting decades of modified land drainage so that water is once again retained and routed through natural pathways rather than rapidly exported downstream.

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Peter is the originator of a Stage Zero restoration concept applied at the Wild Woodbury community rewilding project in Bere Regis—an approach recently showcased on BBC’s The One Show. His consultancy work spans entire catchment areas, from the sources of runoff on hillslopes to the floodplains of mature rivers, where he designs process-based interventions that rebuild ecological function at landscape scale.

Pete Case

technical director of the Freshwater Habitats Trust

Pete Case is a Technical Director for national wildlife conservation charity Freshwater Habitats Trust, and also for the Newt Conservation Partnership (NCP), a community benefit society formed through partnership between Freshwater Habitats Trust and Amphibian and Reptile Conservation. 

Pete works nationally with landowners to create and restore clean water ponds, providing habitat for Great Crested Newts and other freshwater and wetland species - including many of national or regional importance. Pete also helps to shape land management, designing sites that incorporate grassland, woodland and scrub habitats, providing wider biodiversity benefits whilst keeping catchments free from pollution.