How we're run

Nick was Chairman of Cornwall Wildlife Trust from 1984-1997 and, over the years, has acted on various Trust committees. Nick ran a campaign for the protection of moorland in Cornwall from agricultural reclamation, which led to the Penwith Moors ESA; in 1993 he was a Member of Study Group on Seals and Small Cetaceans of ICES; in 1995-1997, 2001-2002 he was an invited participant on the Scientific Committee of International Whaling Commission; and has been Hon. Sec European Cetacean Society and DEFRA nominee on Cornwall Sea Fisheries Committee.

Nick’s research interests include intertidal marine life; floristic change and cetaceans. In 1989 he set up a voluntary research group collecting cetacean sightings and data in Cornwall. This group identified the existence of a pelagic trawl dolphin bycatch and a harbour porpoise gillnet bycatch in UK waters. Nick initiated and ran the first 3 dedicated observer programs in the UK of cetacean bycatch in fisheries (set gill nets, drift nets, pelagic trawls) with various other agencies in the UK and Europe, having visited fishing communities in Senegal and Guinea-Bissau to gain a wider view of these issues. Nick has developed a self-contained cetacean echo-location click detection and logging device, 'the POD', now in use in 12 countries as a conservation research tool.

Mark is a former Cornwall Wildlife Trust employee who left his post as Education and Publicity Manager in 2002, after ten years with the Trust, to work as a writer in a marketing agency. Since 2012 he has run his own business, Mark Nicholson Copywriting. A graduate in zoology (BSc and MPhil), Mark’s specialisms are amphibians, reptiles and pond life. He has been a member of CWT’s Council since 2004 and has previously held posts including Chair of the Finance Committee. He was elected as Chair of the Cornwall Wildlife Trust in November 2013, and is currently Vice-President.

Stephen has a degree in botany from Oxford University. He led two University Expeditions to the Seychelles, as ornithologist and botanist, and then worked as researcher, technical assistant and dogsbody with Oxford Scientific Films. He taught zoology at Flatford Mill Field Centre, including adult residential courses in small mammals, birds, freshwater biology and coastal ecology. He led wildlife and ecology trips, with his wife Carol, for the Field Studies Council, to the Seychelles and the Florida Everglades and then became warden of Skokholm Island in Pembrokeshire. From here he moved to work as Ranger Naturalist for St Abbs Head National Nature Reserve in south east Scotland where he was instrumental in setting up Scotland's first Voluntary Marine Nature Reserve; pre-dating any statutory protection of Scotland's sea and coast by many years.

Stephen moved to Cornwall in 1986 to work for what was then the Nature Conservancy Council. He was involved in many initiatives including the re-routing of the A30 around Goss Moor, the establishment of Lundy as the UK's first Marine Nature Reserve, the setting up of computerised biological recording in Cornwall and the greening of Cornwall's Community Strategy. He has made many appearances at meetings and conferences and has been a regular contributor to press, TV and radio coverage of environmental issues in the South West. Stephen worked closely with the Objective One European funding Programme to strive to make their outputs sustainable and became the first chair of the Cornwall Sustainable Tourism Working Group, a role which allowed him to get to know the CoaST Project and to support their goals.

With Natural England, and its predecessor English Nature, Stephen project-managed the implementation of the EU Habitats Directive in England and later worked in policy, futures and strategy to try to influence the shape of government's environmental programmes. Stephen opted to leave the public sector in 2011 in order to set up Eupraxis Environment, a consultancy that provides training and expert support in all aspects of the natural environment to raise environmental awareness, to reach sustainable solutions and to help individuals and organizations speak and operate with greater confidence and credibility on environmental issues.

Born and brought up in Cornwall, Daniel has lived in Cornwall all his life.  A teacher by profession, he now lives in Truro.  He was educated at Gwinear, Redruth and Helston Schools and at Sussex and Bath universities, but feels that most of his education has been out in the field.  Daniel has a particular interest in birds and mammals and their conservation, and is a strong believer in the importance of surveys and recording.

Daniel has been a member of Cornwall Wildlife Trust for over 30 years and is a founder member of the Cornwall Bat Group, which he led for 10 years.

Paul spent twelve years as Financial Director of the Cornwall Rural Community Council (CRCC), where he also served as Acting Chief Executive twice. The CRCC is a well-established Cornish charity, with a mission to enable “Cornish communities to be vibrant, sustainable and inclusive”. He was also Company Secretary, a position he still holds.  He has lived in Cornwall for twenty years with his main interests being walking, reading, personal investment, messing with cars, painting and drawing. He wants to use his charitable financial experience to help other Cornish charities wherever he can and has become Treasurer for the Truro Sea Cadets, and does consultancy work for Cornwall Community Accountancy Services. 

Paul has also been responsible for installing the first financial and administrative computer systems into certain Cornish newspapers, notably the West Briton, the Cornish Guardian and the Cornishman. He has been Treasurer for Cornwall Wildlife Trust since November 2012 and become involved in various other committees.
 

Steve has worked in environmental and conservation management for over 30 years, including time spent with the National Trust and several Local Authorities. He has been involved in development and delivery of many innovative projects and initiatives including the Tarka Project in Devon, the development of some of the UK’s first voluntary Marine Conservation Areas in Cornwall’s inshore waters, the development of the first Local Authority Performance Indicators for biodiversity as well as the Natural Control of Japanese Knotweed national research project. 

In Cornwall, Steve instigated the first conservation management schemes at several of the county’s key sites such as Penhale Sands and Hayle - Gwithian Towans and has helped in conserving key habitats and species such as petalwort and shore dock at these sites.  This work has been recognised internationally by organisations such as Plantlife, amongst others. He has been a member of various county, regional and national consultation and advisory groups including advising the Government on development of the Marine and Coastal Access Act and identifying priorities for agri-environment schemes across Cornwall. Previously, Steve managed Cornwall Council’s Living Environment Service established with the formation of the new unitary authority in Cornwall. Now working as an independent environmental consultant and running Explore in Cornwall, Steve has been a Trustee for several years, has chaired the ERCCIS Advisory Board Committee and currently sits on the Finance Committee and Conservation Strategy Committee.
 

Fred enjoyed a long career with the Forestry Commission (FC) - first as a forester before a short time in wildlife management research. Fred then became Conservation Adviser to FC Wales for 11 years followed by 20 years as Conservation Adviser to FC England developing the role to a senior level. He worked on a broad range of local and national level issues such as onsite advice to woodland owners and managers, woodland and forest conservation planning, good practice guidance and training, and helped develop national policy and delivery through forming and managing partnerships and targeted Forestry Commission Grant schemes.

Fred has had a life-long interest in birds and bird conservation and with FC and partner support was able to co-ordinate national research, survey and management aimed at reversing declines in woodland birds. On retirement in 2007 Fred and his wife took ownership of a small 20 acre farm in West Penwith which they manage primarily for wildlife. 

Charlie has had a career of over 35 years in countryside management, first as a Ranger for the Hertfordshire Countryside Management Service before spending three years as the Heritage Coast Project Officer on Flamborough Head, East Yorkshire. He arrived in North Cornwall in 1985 working for North Cornwall District Council as their Countryside/Environment Manager.

Between 2009, when the Unitary Authority was introduced, and March 2014, he took voluntary redundancy, He worked first as Cornwall Council's Environment Manager for East Cornwall and then as their Environment Policy and Strategy Manager based in Scorrier and was, during that time, responsible for staff, budgets, health and safety, work programming and the development of a strategic outlook for the Council's natural and historic environmental responsibilities.

His professional experience has included the management of historic and natural land owned by the Council; the development of a strategic approach to future management requiring bids for significant funding packages from the HLF and Europe; the use of Countryside Stewardship, directly and indirectly, and the development and management of local and marine nature reserves; Bodmin Beacon, Bude Marshes and Polzeath.

Charlie was a Director of the SITA Cornwall Trust for three years and a School Governor at St James' Smith School for four years. He has been a Member of the CWT since 1985 and was a founder member of Cornwall Butterfly Conservation.  More recently, on moving from Boscastle to Lanner, he runs a smallholding with his wife; volunteers for Cornwall Wildlife Trust's Open Gardens scheme; and also works for his son who runs a small independent Countryside Management Contracting business, Naturally Green. Clients include Cornwall Wildlife Trust, The National Trust, Natural England, Cornwall Archaeology, South West Lakes Trust as well as numerous private landowners.

With a background in geological sciences he spent his working life in the Natural History Museum (NHM) and retired to Cornwall.  With a longstanding interest in the natural sciences he became a member and later chair of Cornwall Geoconservation Group and was appointed a Trustee of Cornwall Wildlife Trust 6 years ago.  He chaired the Trust’s Conservation Strategy Committee for three years until it was replaced by the Strategy Committee and currently sits on that committee and a number of others.

At the NHM he worked on collection conservation methodology and research and, as part of the management team, established and managed the Museums first Health and Safety department.   He has advised on museum conservation and management in the UK and internationally and was a member of committees including the International Centre for the Study of the Preservation and Restoration of Cultural Property, the UK Institute for Conservation, Government Safety Forums and was a joint co-ordinator of the first World Congress on the Preservation and Conservation of Natural History Collections.  He has published widely on museum issues including books and papers on the conservation of geological collections and museum health and safety management.  Since retiring to Penwith he has been actively working on and publicising the recent geological history of Cornwall and currently chairs the Cornwall Geoconservation Group.  He sees the work of the excellent staff and volunteers of the Trust as essential in raising public awareness on the key part our biodiversity plays in maintaining a healthy environment and local ecosystems.

John joined the Cornwall Wildlife Trust as the voluntary warden of Ventongimps nature reserve in 1989. In those days, work on the nature reserves was done by volunteers, and on his first work party, he was offered a small pair of scissors to cut gorse bushes down - without gloves, John has watched the amazing transformation over the years, from these beginnings, to the highly professional team of staff who now manage nature reserves, with John becoming chairman of the Trust’s Nature Reserves Committee.

Over the years, he has done contract work for the Trust’s consultancy, resulting in nearly 40 nature reserve management plans with a sound knowledge of the National Vegetation Classification. He has been a full time nature reserve warden for a year, at Sandwich Bay Nature Reserve in Kent. He also helped work towards the return of the Cornish chough to Cornwall, with his dissertation for a diploma in Countryside Management was on this topic.

Phil was recently Director of Vlasska Limited, a small consultancy based in Cornwall that specialised in European funding programme advice. Before setting up Vlasska Limited in 2011, he was responsible for European programmes and policy across Cornwall and the South West within the South West Regional Development Agency and, previously, Government Office for the South West and has 18 years’ experience in this field. He led the team that negotiated funding from Brussels for Higher Education in Cornwall (eg Tremough campus) and Superfast Broadband. He's worked across Europe, including two years in the Czech Republic advising the Ministers of Environment and Education on preparations for EU membership.

Phil worked in Government Office for the South West for two years, as the Director for Rural and Environment, leading a team working on Defra business in the region. He's currently a Trustee of Volunteer Cornwall (VC), holds a role on the Finance and Risk Committee and, as Board member, advises the organisation on European matters. He's prepared a strategy for VC on relations with Brussels post-BREXIT and am advising on INTERREG funding applications.  Phil is additionally Honorary Secretary of the Cornwall Bird Watching and Preservation Society (CBWPS). His interest in conservation and wildlife was sparked at the age of 11 when a neighbour began destroying House Martin nests, and he's been a member of both Cornwall Wildilife Trust and CBWPS for many years,Born in Cornwall, he loves the place and its people. Phil is a regular conservation volunteer and can usually be found on the north coast somewhere.
 

I am a retired solicitor who practised in both the private and public sectors specialising in planning, procurement and governance. I also spent some time in legal publishing. I have been a trustee for six years. Currently I am vice chair of the Trust’s council and chair of the Strategy committee. I am also a director of the Trust’s consultancy company, Cornwall Environmental Consultants.

Like many members of Wildlife Trusts up and down the country, Dee has a lifelong interest in, and passion for, the natural world.  She has been a Cornwall Wildlife Trust trustee since 2013 sitting on a number of committees.  Her background and experience is in marketing and public relations having worked professionally at senior management level in both the public and private sector for more than thirty years.  Dee has also been a parish clerk, a trustee of a hospice charity in Oxford and, for four years, a staff fundraiser for Cornwall Hospice Care.  Locally, she is secretary of the Restronguet Creek Society leading Creek Wildlife Watch walks and events while encouraging local residents to record the wildlife on the creek for the Environmental Records Centre for Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly.  She says she is enormously proud of the work of Cornwall Wildlife Trust, the expertise, enthusiasm and knowledge of the staff and volunteers who care so much about the environment and do so much to protect Cornwall’s wildlife and wild places.

Gill joined Cornwall Wildlife Trust recently when she moved back to the south west (she's originally from East Devon) and lives near Boyton.  She has around five acres here that she is developing as a wildlife-friendly garden, and is working with the Devon Wildlife Trust on the restoration of a meadow. She currently volunteers with Bude Sea Pool and takes part in various beach cleaning and cleaner seas activities in her local area. Although she was a career civil servant (with an OBE ) she always been interested in - and in one way or another involved in - activities around wildlife and conservation. Gill is an experienced trustee.  She is currently on the board of Phoenix Futures, a large charity working in the drug and alcohol rehabilitation field and with a strong record in conservation work under the 'recovery through nature' banner. She was also a trustee and the business manager of a London allotment site where she ran projects involving tenants and community groups in building and maintaining wildlife habitats around the site as well as raising awareness of wildlife-related issues in the locality.

Currently she's particularly interested in how future uncertainties around commercial farming post-Brexit will impact land use in Cornwall - and how responses to new regulatory and subsidy regimes may bring new challenges for habitat conservation and development.

Jean was introduced to Jill Sutcliffe joining the Cornwall Trust for Nature Conservation as it was known previously. I attended meetings at Trelissick when Jill was the only paid member of the Trust. Being a teacher, Jean volunteered to help with the educational events and schools and was there when Fox Club, now Wildlife Watch was launched in 1983. Together they formed the Education Committee,  with Loveday Jenkins and Jude Bishop working part-time. Jean was asked to be Education Committee Chairman, and began attending Council meetings as the Education representative. She currently sits on the Marketing & Fundraising Committee which has recently incorporated Wildlife Watch.  They have made many progressive changes to the programme of events which are held in all parts of the county.

Dave was born in Liverpool, moving at a young age to live close to the shores of the Mersey, where he first discovered birdwatching.

Dave moved to Cornwall in the 1960s and joined Cornwall Wildlife Trust through his love of birds, and meeting a group of our Founder Members who further inspired him about the environment.

His main interest continues to be birds; he heads the Restormel Local Group and sits on Council, having been elected in the 1990s.  He is a regular supporter of Cornwall Wildlife Trust's Photographic Group’s activities and leads many conservation activities and events.

Liz has been a member of the Trust since the 1970s and worked as a volunteer in a variety of capacities. She has been involved in publicity and fund-raising, served as voluntary Sales Officer, helped with the Penwith Local Group and is co-ordinator of the members’ magazine distribution in west Penwith. She has been a Trustee for several years and currently sits on the Finance and Reserves Committees. Her natural history interests include botanical and fungus recording and bird-watching. During her lifetime in Cornwall, she has witnessed huge, and often depressing, changes in the countryside and wildlife.  Liz believes Cornwall Wildlife Trust has a vital role to play in fighting the ever-increasing pressures on our natural environment. 

I have been a member of Cornwall Wildlife Trust for over 25 years now starting by setting up with a friend, a Wildlife Watch group in East Cornwall. Joining the Caradon Branch as a regular participant at walks and talks with our young children, I little realised the route this would start me on. Soon the Education Committee followed by Trust Council; I have worn quite a groove between the banks of the Tamar and Allet attending meetings. Years of setting up those walks and talks myself for Caradon was great fun and led to my doing the same for the Tamar Valley area and then into the development of several specialist and community organisations. Our children are now grown up and both biologists, thanks to a family enthusiasm for insects and weekends spent exploring with the Caradon group. My husband Richard is Warden of Luckett Nature Reserve and for several years ran special interest holidays for flower and butterfly enthusiasts abroad. My own degree in sculpture led to further training and work in Landscape Architecture which gave me a good grounding in all aspects of the landscape. Alongside my interest in wildlife, another in landscape history flourished.  For the past ten years I have combined working as English Heritage's Field Monument Warden in East Cornwall and South Devon, (helping people to manage their archaeological sites in the best way to preserve them), with an eye to the interests of the wildlife species and habitats which have colonised them.

I have a particular interest in planning and in conservation management.

Karen has a legal and commercial professional background and worked for BG Group Plc from 1985 to 2011 obtaining many years of management experience across a wide range of disciplines. Karen qualified as a lawyer with Linklaters then practised there for several years as a commercial lawyer. In BG Group Karen worked on several major projects and became Deputy General Counsel in 1997. Subsequently she had commercial and country management roles for BG Group in Trinidad and Canada.

Karen was an Environment Agency Board Member for six years from 2012 and chaired the Audit and Risk Assurance Committee, taking a particular interest in the work of the Devon Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly area, as well as the Solent and South Downs area.

Currently Karen is a governor of Cornwall College and is Chair of the Finance and Resources Committee. Karen is a member of the Chairs’ Group (Remuneration), and the Search and Governance Committee. Married with two grown up daughters her interests include hiking, rowing, skiing, sailing and working with environment groups including the National Trust and the Roseland Environment Action Team.

Fiona Wotton is a director at Creative Kernow, Cornwall's leading creative hub and cultural agency.  Her most recent role has been running the Arts Council and Visit England Cultural Destination programme for Cornwall - Cornwall 365.  This has involved building a network of leading creative and tourism organisations with a shared vision for cultural tourism, designing a programme of events and business training to support businesses in accessing new markets and developing tourism products and creating a comprehensive events listings platform.   Current work involves overseeing an organisational development project.

Before moving to Cornwall in 2009, Fiona led fundraising campaigns for Macmillan Cancer Care and the University of East London and relocated to oversee the capital funding project for Tate St Ives. 

Fiona holds degrees from University College London, Birkbeck University of London and the University of Exeter.  Her PhD investigated the politics of sustainable communities and developed new methods for engaging communities in social and environmental issues.  She was a Clore Fellow in 2018/19 through which she was seconded to The Roundhouse in London and undertook a project looking at the organisation's social impact narrative.  She is continuing this work through an Arts and Humanities Research Council funded research project in conjunction with Royal Holloway University of London.

Fiona lives near Penzance with her husband and 9 year old twin daughters.  She is passionate about involving young people in responding to the climate emergency and is Outdoor Learning governor at Pendeen School.