Steering Group
New Networks for Nature is run by a steering group consisting of Carry Akroyd, John Barlow, Tim Birkhead, Mark Cocker, John Fanshawe, Paul Jepson, Rob Lambert, Harriet Mead, Stephen Moss, Jeremy Mynott and Mike Toms.
Carry Akroyd is a painter and printmaker whose work reflects the many aspects of her interest in landscape. She has served on Council for the Society of Wildlife Artists, and on the selection panel for the national Originals print exhibition. She established Northamptonshire Open Studios, organising it for its first two foundation years, and also curated several group exhibitions in Suffolk, Northamptonshire and Yorkshire. She has been involved in artist’s groups supporting The Great Fen Project, and the Scottish Forestry Commission’s Atlantic Oakwoods Project. Carry regularly gives talks about John Clare, and in a recently published book of her work she also reflects on how the nineteenth century poet has influenced her work. She is currently editing a book of wildlife printmakers.
John Barlow is a poet, editor, publisher and designer. His poetry is largely informed by considerations of the haiku tradition, both classical and modern, and often fuses the worlds of outer and inner landscape. It has received awards in Britain, America, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand and Japan, while works he has edited have been honoured by the Haiku Society of America and the Poetry Society of America. A lifelong interest in natural history has led much of his work to be concerned with the interconnectedness between nature and humans, and he has given talks on birds and haiku at a diverse range of conferences, venues and events, including Haiku North America, Oxford University, and the Ghosts of Gone Birds exhibition. His books include The New Haiku (with Martin Lucas, 2002), Snow About To Fall (2006), Waiting for the Seventh Wave (2006) and Wing Beats: British Birds in Haiku (with Matthew Paul, 2008).
Tim Birkhead is a professor of behaviour and evolution at the University of Sheffield. His research on promiscuity and sperm competition in birds helped to re-shape current understanding of bird mating systems. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 2004. As well as a passion for research, Tim is committed to undergraduate teaching and the public understanding of science. His talks (see www.ted.com/talks/tim_birkhead_the_wisdom_of_birds.html) and popular science books have gained widespread recognition and The Wisdom of Birds won ‘bird book of the year award’ from the British Trust for Ornithology and British Birds in 2010. His next book, Bird Sense will be published in 2012.
Mark Cocker is an author and naturalist and contributes regularly to The Guardian, Times Literary Supplement and other publications. All of his eight books deal with modern responses to wilderness, whether found in landscape, human societies or in other species. His last work, Crow Country, was short-listed for the Samuel Johnson Prize 2008 and won the New Angle Prize 2009. For the last five years he has being working on a major new book with photographer David Tipling. Birds and People (Jonathan Cape) is a worldwide survey of the cultural importance of birds and is due out in 2013.
John Fanshawe is an author and environmentalist based in north Cornwall. Over the last two decades, he has worked on bird and biodiversity conservation in the UK, Kenya and Tanzania; primarily for the charity BirdLife. With Terry Stevenson, he is co-author of a Field Guide to the Birds of East Africa (2001), and recently collaborated with Mark Cocker to publish the diaries of J. A. Baker (2010), author of The Peregrine. Currently working as a Senior Strategy Adviser for BirdLife, he is co-ordinating a programme on birds, culture and conservation, including a series of collaborations with authors, artists and musicians. He is also undertaking a part-time MA in Art and Environment at University College Falmouth as a member of the research group RANE.
Paul Jepson is Course Director of Oxford’s MSc in Nature, Society and Environmental Policy. He is based in the School of Geography where he also leads an interdisciplinary Conservation Governance Lab which is working to generate richer conceptualizations of how conservation actors build, extend and legitimate their influence. Paul transferred into academia from a successful career in conservation management and policy. He started out as a local government countryside officer developing new urban conservation initiatives in Manchester and Shrewsbury (UK), then set up the BirdLife International Indonesia Programme (1991–1997) and went on to consult for various inter-governmental and non-governmental organisations. He recently published Conservation: A Beginner’s Guide and his recent academic writings focus on themes of self-governance, extinction and non-human agency in conservation. He is currently developing new projects relating to the potential and influence of digital technologies in conservation governance.
Rob Lambert is a multi-disciplinary academic at the University of Nottingham, working in environmental history and tourism & the environment. A Senior Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Western Australia, and a past President of the European Society for Environmental History, he has co-edited the international journal Environment and History since 2000. He has also been a programme consultant and talking head expert to the BBC Natural History Unit in Bristol, working on a number of TV and radio documentaries including the series Birds Britannia, Making Scotland’s Landscape, When Britain Went Wild, Why the British Love Wildlife and Torrey Canyon: toxic tide. His books include the monograph Contested Mountains (2001), and the edited volumes Species History in Scotland (1998), Rothiemurchus: Nature and People on a Highland Estate 1500–2000 (with T.C. Smout, 1999) and Invasive and Introduced Plants and Animals: human perceptions, attitudes and approaches to management (with Ian Rotherham, 2011).
Harriet Mead is an award-winning sculptor and the President of the Society of Wildlife Artists (SWLA). The influence of her late father, the ornithologist, author and broadcaster, Chris Mead, meant it was probably inevitable that she should take an interest in natural history and use it in her work. During her time at the helm of the SWLA, Harriet has worked to broaden their audience and to shrug off the negative connotations of wildlife art. Having worked on various projects with the Artists for Nature Foundation, she also has plans to encourage conservation organisations to make use of the SWLA pool of artists to help bring a different perspective to their projects and to highlight areas of conservation concern all over the world.
www.harrietmead.co.uk
Stephen Moss is a naturalist, television producer, writer and broadcaster specialising in British wildlife. In a 30 year career at the BBC, much of it based at the Natural History Unit in Bristol, he has been responsible for many successful series, including Birding with Bill Oddie, Big Cat Diary, The Nature of Britain, Springwatch and Autumnwatch. His most recent series, Birds Britannia, on the unique relationship between the British and our birds, was broadcast on BBC Four. He writes a monthly column on birdwatching for The Guardian, and regularly contributes to magazines such as Gardeners’ World, BBC Wildlife, BBC Countryfile, the RSPB’s Birds and the National Trust magazine. His books include A Bird in the Bush: A Social History of Birdwatching, This Birding Life, A Sky Full of Starlings, The Bumper Book of Nature and a natural history of his country parish, Wild Hares and Hummingbirds. He is married with five children, and lives on the Somerset Levels.
www.stephenmoss.tv
Jeremy Mynott spent most of his professional career in publishing at Cambridge University Press, working successively as editor, editorial director, managing director and chief executive. He has been a Fellow of Wolfson College, Cambridge since 1999. Jeremy has had a life-long interest in wildlife and the natural world, in particular birds. He has explored the variety of human responses to birds, from the ancient world to the present day, in Birdscapes: Birds in Our Imagination and Experience (Princeton University Press, 2009), a book described by reviewers as ‘the finest book ever written about why we watch birds’ (Guardian), ‘a ground-breaking work’ (British Birds) and ‘wonderful rumination on birds and birders through space and time for anyone interested in our relationship with nature’ (THES). He has broadcast on radio and television and was a leading contributor to the recent BBC series, Birds Britannia.
Mike Toms is the BTO’s Head of Garden Ecology, researching how birds and other forms of wildlife use the built-environment. Much of his work is geared towards public engagement in ‘Citizen Science’, delivering quality research through networks of keen amateurs. He has been with the BTO since 1994 and has also worked on owls, bird migration, monitoring methods and mammals (amongst others) during his time with the organisation. Mike sees a real need for scientists to communicate the results of their work in ways that engage more effectively with a wider audience. With an artistic background, he also seeks to promote experiences of the natural world, adding context to the rather dry and often formal outputs of the scientific community. Mike is a regular contributor to BBC Wildlife magazine, a columnist for the Eastern Daily Press and author of several books.
Personal website: www.theaurelian.co.uk
Blog: www.in-the-countryside.blogspot.com Twitter feed: @miketoms
Image credits
Photograph of Carry Akroyd by Leonard; John Barlow by Wendy Farrell; Tim Birkhead by M. E. Birkhead; Mark Cocker by Rachael Cocker; John Fanshawe by Greg Poole; Paul Jepson by Susanne Schmitt; Harriet Mead by V. Mead; Stephen Moss by Suzanne Moss; Jeremy Mynott by Nikolay Stepkin; Mike Toms by Amy Lewis.