RSPB Reserves Conference 2014
SPEAKERS ON THURSDAY
MIKE CLARKE
I was appointed Chief Executive in 2010, having been RSPB’s Operations Director since 1998. I have worked at the RSPB for more than 20 years, initially in South East England tackling a wide range of land use issues. Prior to the RSPB, I worked for the Nature Conservancy Council in Hampshire and the Chief Scientists Team, where I contributed to the Geological Conservation Review and the National Vegetation Classification, and carried out research with the Soil Survey of England and Wales. My PhD was on the ecology of the New Forest. I am a Council member of BirdLife International, a global partnership of conservation organisations and was a member of the Independent Panel on Forestry Policy in England. I was a member of the Government’s England Forestry Forum, and have served on Southampton University’s Council and was a Director of the North Bedfordshire Schools Trust.
SOPHIE THOMAS
I am Project Manager for the RSPB's Seabird Island Restoration programme. I volunteered on the rat eradication/seabird recovery programmes on Lundy Island and the uninhabited Dog Island, Anguilla (Caribbean UKOT) and now advise on a number of rat eradication projects and biosecurity plans, particularly across the UK. The programme aims to develop an operational platform for all the Society’s island restoration work and to prioritize sites for future action. Previously I ran Plantlife’s invasive plants programme which sought to get Schedule 9 of the Wildlife and Countryside Act updated, a ban on sale for some of the worst species implemented, and the threat of invasive plants from a number of the UK's key botanical sites removed.
GWYN WILLIAMS
I have worked for the RSPB in a variety of roles for 30 years. As the RSPB's person working on water issues, I spent a lot of time in Northern Ireland in the 1980s seeking to influence design and delivery of cross-border drainage schemes for the Blackwater and Finn-Lackey. In the 1990s, I co-ordinated RSPB species conservation work, including for corncrake - that again included a major programme, together with EHS, in Northern Ireland. Sadly, this was too late to prevent the loss of corncrake to Northern Ireland, but the understanding that developed led to successful recovery projects in Scotland. I now lead our Reserves and Protected Areas work across the UK.
MALCOLM BURGESS
I work on a number of woodland bird projects as a Conservation Scientist. I am also an Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Exeter, where I work on woodland bird projects. I co-supervise PhD's at both Exeter and Edinburgh Universities.
I am currently working for International Research writing up data collected in Gola, Sierra Leone. This includes work on picathartes and looking at differences in taxa and human activity in protected versus community forest. I also work on the wood warbler project, investigating declines with a study population on Dartmoor.
