Chris is Environment and Nature lead at J & E Dickinson, a dairy and farming business based in West & South Yorkshire.

Primarily based at Tyers Hall Farm in Barnsley, he oversees the strategy to improve habitats, through Countryside Stewardship schemes, hedgerow management and woodland creation.  Along with improving the dedicated habitats on the farm, his passion is soil health and nature friendly farming practices.

Having co-founded the Dearne Valley Farmers cluster group in conjunction with the Don Catchment Rivers Trust, Chris advocates for the role of farmers to restore nature at scale across our region.

Faye is passionate about sustainable development and as a professional consultant, enjoys working with clients to explore opportunities to enhance the natural environment for the benefit people and nature. 

She is currently the Head of Nature (North) for Greengage Environmental where she leads the team delivering ecology and natural capital projects. She began her career in 2008 and has a wealth of experience in biodiversity net gain, bats, badgers, great crested newts and water voles. 

She is Co-chair of IEMA’s biodiversity and natural capital steering group and former chair and committee member for Women in Property Yorkshire and North East.

James has over fifteen years of experience working cross-sector in a variety of project orchestration, development and delivery roles. 

His work is oriented around networked and platform responses to poverty, marginalisation, biosphere collapse, democracy and media reform. He is motivated by a deep curiosity as to how we entangle multi-disciplinary approaches in the face of interlinked and compounding problems our societies face.

James works on hyper-local community led projects in Sheffield and across South Yorkshire where he is based. He also works internationally across a variety of different networks and platforms for emerging system change. 

Understanding how new ontologies can be embedded in civic, ecological and economic infrastructures, while maintaining a plurality of responses between the local and the planetary is a core inquiry in his work.

Jim Smith is the Nature Recovery Advisor for the Forestry Commission working across Yorkshire with a range of LNRS Responsible Authorities and partners from the Tees to the Humber and across to South Yorkshire. The Forestry Commission is the Government’s forestry expert and sets out to promote sustainable woodland creation / management and the protection of all woodland and trees in England. 

Jim has over a quarter of a century of working experience within the environment and forestry sector for a range of organisations in England and Scotland in both urban and rural settings. This has involved partnership work with the South Yorkshire Woodland Partnership, working for the National Trust and also managing a portfolio of woodland sites for Forestry England in South Yorkshire. 

Kirsty is a professional ecologist with a successful track record in partnership working with public, private and third sectors. 

Kirsty has a thorough understanding of commercial and biodiversity net gain (BNG) requirements and how locally-based nature solutions can contribute strategically at scale. 

Kirsty believes that the relationships between land, people and land availability will be critical to the LNRS success. Given the heritage and range of urban and rural habitats and landscapes in South Yorkshire, and how much they are appreciated locally, Kirsty welcomes the opportunity to help create a fantastic biodiversity legacy for South Yorkshire through the LNRS Panel. 

 Serving as Chief Executive of Sheffield & Rotherham Wildlife Trust since 2012, Liz draws on many years of experience and insights gained from a long career in the environment sector, including working for National Parks, Local Authorities, Social Enterprises & Charities in both urban and rural environments.  

Liz is the Chair of the South Yorkshire Woodland Partnership, and co-ordinates the South Yorkshire Local Nature Partnership.  Liz also established and chaired the first Sheffield Street Tree Partnership between the community and Sheffield in the wake of tree felling protests that bought the city to a standstill.  

Liz has a degree in Geology, an MBA and is currently studying for an MSc in Wildlife, Biodiversity and Ecosystem Health with the University of Edinburgh.

Born in Doncaster, Louise's early interests in ecology led to a career as a self-employed ecological surveyor based in South Yorkshire.

 Involvement with local naturalists' societies, Biodiversity and Local Wildlife Sites Partnerships, and Local Records Centres has resulted in contact with many knowledgeable local naturalists. Louise is a Trustee of a small landscape heritage charity and is joint Botanical Recorder for SW Yorkshire. 

Promoting the value of biodiversity has been at the heart of both her professional work and outside activities and she hopes to provide insight into previous local biodiversity strategies and experience of practical implementation.

Peter is the Director of Sustainability at Harworth, a major developer in the region, leading the company’s overall strategy for Sustainability, ESG and our Net Zero Pathway. 

Peter, a Chartered Engineer, has a wide range of commercial, construction and design experience in the delivery of large, complex, long-term regeneration across the North and the Midlands. He has a wide range of experience in the creation of residential, commercial, energy and nature recovery-based developments over the last decade in South Yorkshire. 

Prior to joining the company, he worked in consultancy providing technical and management advice to developers of large scale regeneration schemes across a range of private and public organisations.

Rachael has been leading Yorkshire Wildlife Trust since 2019, focusing on growth, evolution and increased impact for wildlife. 

She has spent 25 years focussed on driving better environmental outcomes through strategic leadership and partnership working. She is a Yorkshire and Humber Climate Commissioner, Chair of the Great North Bog Board, & the Humberhead Levels Partnership and a member of the Forestry Commission’s Advisory Committee and Homeward Bound, an international women’s leadership network. 

She has degrees in Land Economy, Equine Science and Anthrozoology.

Sean Davey is a Lead Ecologist at Yorkshire Water. Originally from the West Midlands, Sean came to study in Sheffield in 2007 and has lived in the city since. 

He has worked in the environmental profession throughout Yorkshire and the UK for over 12 years, in wildlife consultancy and now in the water utilities sector. Sean regularly volunteers for the South Yorkshire Bat Group where he helps to run bat conservation and monitoring projects across the county. He is an outdoor enthusiast with a passion for South Yorkshire’s landscapes and supporting nature recovery.

Helen works in the senior management team at The Green Estate CIC who were granted the Kings Enterprise Award for Sustainable Development in 2023. She has a background in Financial Services and re-trained as a Landscape Architect at The University of Sheffield in 2008, taking tutelage from both Professor Nigel Dunnett and Professor James Hitchmough. Helen has always had a strong focus on creating nature-based solutions with real beauty to encourage a human connection to the landscape.

She has worked in the commercial landscaping and horticultural industry for the past 13 years. Initially designing and installing green roofs, contributing to the design of SUDs soils for the Grey to Green Scheme in Sheffield (including PAS100 standard soil improver made by the The Green Estate CIC’s Green Waste Recycling service) as well as its ongoing management and managed over 40 hectares of parks and public green spaces. Since the beginning of 2023, Helen has headed up the resilient landscaping products and services team, working on business strategy, processes, planning and spreading the word about the work that The Green Estate does. The Green Estate CIC has a mission to grow green and resilient urban places for people and nature to thrive.

Tom is an ecologist with >25 years’ professional and research experience. 

An academic in the University of Sheffield’s Department of Landscape Architecture, Tom previously held roles as Director of South Yorkshire Forest Partnership and in environmental planning and protection. Specialising in ecosystem restoration and nature-based solutions, he holds skills in developing strategy and delivering collaborative projects.

 Tom established the Local Nature Partnership in 2012, chairing its Board until 2015, and was a founder Director of the River Stewardship Company and Don Catchment Rivers Trust. He maintains a strong cross-sectoral network of contacts in the not-for-profit, public, research and private sectors.