Meet the Team
The Tir Natur team came together with a shared passion for nature recovery and a collective understanding of the scale of the problem we are facing.
If you are interested in joining the Tir Natur team, or contributing in some way, then please get in touch by emailing team@tirnatur.cymru.
Ambassador
Iolo Williams
Naturalist and TV presenter, Iolo Williams, has joined Tir Natur's team as our ambassador:
“Cymru is one of the most nature-depleted countries on the planet and the State of Nature report shows that, despite conservation efforts, wildlife numbers are still falling. In my lifetime, I have witnessed huge declines in species such as hedgehogs, lapwing and yellowhammer. If we are to turn things around, we must show more ambition.
We must look at restoring ecosystems at a landscape scale so that nature can lead the way and its recovery can be scaled-up. In short, we must rewild."
The Team
Stephen Jenkins (Development Officer)
David Kilner
(Development Officer)
Gwenni Jenkins-Jones
(Fundraising Officer)
Stephen is a Development Officer for Tir Natur. His focus is on our communications and overall strategy, delivering the key messages of the charity to a wide audience and using this to build relationships and networking opportunities. Stephen is tasked with the execution of elements of the fundraising strategy and is in charge of land acquisition. “Our appetite for exploiting and diminishing nature over the past centuries has been insatiable; our appetite for restoring it must be equally so”.
David leads on Tir Natur’s fundraising strategy with a particular focus on developing individual giving and foundational grant applications. David is also responsible for engaging with stakeholders and potential partners that would facilitate Tir Natur’s core aims e.g. academic, statutory programs (eg. peat/river restoration) existing land restoration projects, graziers/cooperatives, ecologists, citizen science projects, corporate partners.
Gwenan (Gwenni) has worked in fundraising at the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama for six years, specifically in individual giving and events, and is currently Development Manager of Operations. She has had a love of wildlife from a young age, having grown up in a family of environmentalists, which naturally led to her involvement in environmental activism, volunteering for the British Trust of Ornithology, and becoming a Trustee of Keep Wales Tidy. During her first year on the Board, she co-founded its Youth Board to give young people a voice in decision making. With her background in fundraising operations, individual giving and events, Gwenan is working with David on delivering Tir Natur’s Fundraising Strategy. As a passionate Welsh speaker, (with a BA degree in Welsh) and a folk fiddler, she is also looking forward to working with the team to ensure Welsh culture is at the core of this exciting project.
Dan Ward
(Policy Officer)
Dan has led on our responses to the consultation on the Sustainable Farming Scheme (a condensed version of our response can be found here), the recent CCEI inquiry response on ‘Halting and reversing the loss of nature by 2030’, an NRW consultation on the release of game birds and a Brecon Beacons Management Plan. “Ultimately, Tir Natur’s land acquisition will serve us in demonstrating our vision to our policy makers so that our calls for a whole ecosystem approach to nature recovery can be more impactful.”
Board of Trustees
Tasha Reilly (Chair)
Tim Birch
Richard Wheat
I am a farmer, and manage a 70-acre project in Carmarthenshire where I am developing a model for a farm that will run with 60% of the land in beef and pork production as well as agroforestry and the remaining 40% will support and increase biodiversity. I wholeheartedly support rewilding in Wales and working with other farmers and landowners to increase our natural capital. My career started as a plant scientist at Kew Gardens and my love for the natural world was born. I have gone full circle as I am currently studying an environmental science degree with the Open University. My interest in rewilding started at a workshop in Glen Affric in 2018 and I am still learning.
Tim works for Wildlife Trusts Wales and is their Senior Policy and Advocacy Manager. He has been working in the environment and nature conservation sector for over 20 years, with a variety of organizations including Derbyshire Wildlife Trust, RSPB, Greenpeace UK and Greenpeace International. "We are in the middle of a nature and climate crisis. It is clear that new approaches are urgently needed to tackle these threats. Rewilding is one such approach. It is about restoring nature at scale where natural processes are allowed to thrive, and missing species are returned. It is also about reconnecting people to a world where nature is thriving, and communities are sustained for the long term".
With a background in fine art and television production, Rich brings a creative energy to Tir Natur. He is passionate about finding practical solutions to the biodiversity and climate crises and is focused on ways to rekindle people’s often broken relationship with nature. He came up with the concept for our Interactive Ecosystems, as a way to engage a new audience with rewilding, creating a dynamic, stimulating approach to education and fundraising. He lives in South Pembrokeshire on a smallholding dedicated to nature restoration, complete with traditional hay meadows, ponds and overgrown hedgerows.
James Hitchcock
Sally Weale
Tom Roberts
James is the Wales Advocacy Coordinator for Rewilding Britain and has worked in the environmental sector for over 20 years, most recently as CEO of Radnorshire Wildlife Trust, leading them through a period of growth and the acquisition of Pentwyn Farm. He secured funding and developed stakeholder relationships, conducting campaigning and advocacy and landowner advice programmes. James is passionate about the need to scale up our efforts for nature's recovery, which can only be achieved by increasing our ambition and embracing natural processes, extensive/wilder grazing and rewilding.
Sally is a documentary producer and naturalist. She has a PhD in zoology and for several years headed up the film unit at the Natural History Museum. Recent TV projects include the BBC landmark series Wonders of the Celtic Deep which looked at the remarkably diverse marine wildlife living off the Welsh coast and the growing environmental threat. With the rapid loss of so much of Wales’ once abundant wildlife she’s excited by the scale and ambition of Tir Natur’s vision, and its holistic, nature-led approach to bringing back biodiversity rich, healthy ecosystems where wildlife and local communities flourish alongside each other.
Tom is realising a lifetime ambition to create a small nature reserve through natural restoration. He acquired an 11-acre sheep farm in Ceredigion and is busy creating ponds and planting native trees and wildflower meadows – with an emphasis on rare Welsh species such as the black poplar and alder buckthorn trees, and the near-extinct Deptford pink, corncockle, Dyer’s greenweed, small-flowered catchfly, autumn squill and other wildflowers. The reserve is a home for recovering hedgehogs released from a local animal hospital. Tom’s previous career was making international documentaries during which he accumulated well over a 100 broadcast credits as a director/producer. He founded the indie production company October Films.
Volunteers
Alongside our active Board of Trustees and team of Staff, the hub and heart of Tir Natur are our dedicated and talented team of volunteers.
With skills and backgrounds ranging from architecture and law to politics and media, this team is driving the organisation towards its goals. They are Katherine, Rachel, Matt, Maeve, Jo, and Austin, Adriana, Ben, Gethin, Karen, Mick, Sam and Sian. Diolch i chi!
If you would like to offer your help as a volunteer, then give us a shout or fill in this form!