What's On?
Plenary Sessions
Dan Raven-Ellison - Dan is a guerrilla geographer, National Geographic Emerging Explorer, Ordnance Survey Get Outside Champion, former geography teacher who founded and led the successful campaign to make London the world’s first National Park City. Dan is an inspirational speaker and believes in creative exploration, geography and communication to tackle social and environmental challenges.
Chris Packham CBE - Chris is one of the UKs leading naturalists and wildlife TV presenters inspiring audiences young and old to take notice of, get involved with and care for our natural environment. He has a passionate love of nature and the courage, determination and ability to campaign for and protect our wildlife. He is also a prolific writer and respected wildlife photographer.
Stephen Moss - one of Britain’s leading nature writers, broadcasters and wildlife television producers. He writes a regular monthly ‘Birdwatch’ column for the Guardian, is President of the Somerset Wildlife Trust, a co-founder of A Focus on Nature, and teaches an MA in Travel and Nature Writing at Bath Spa University. A lifelong naturalist, Stephen has travelled to all seven of the world’s continents in search of wildlife.
Practical Conservation panel
Plenary Panels
What's the role of politics in saving nature?
Chair: Daniela Torres Perez - co-founder of UKSCN
Lord Randall - Conservative politician, Environment adviser to Theresa May, former MP for Uxbridge for 18 years and council member for the RSPB
Sir Edward Davey - Liberal Democrat MP and the former minister for Energy and Climate Change
Amelia Womack - Deputy Leader of the Green Party
Richard Benwell - Policy adviser at Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA)
Daze Aghaji - 19 year old environmental campaigner who ran for MEP
How can we make nature a more inclusive space?
Chair: Yetunde - 'Action for Conservation Youth Alumnus
Dr Sarah Bell - Lecturer in Health Geography at the University of Exeter
Alejandro Prescott-Cornejo - Nature conservationist and photographer from Ottawa, Canada
Laura Ashfield - Keeping it Wild, London Wildlife Trust
Lydia Allen - National Youth Agency
Hannah Ryan-Leah- Action for Conservation
Youth For Our Planet
Chair: Matt Williams - Youth for Our Planet Project Coordinator at WWF-UK
Panelists TBA.
Species Recovery Panel
Chair: Tim Mackrill
Lukas Ruzo
Peter Cooper
Harvey Tweats
Brittany Maxted
Communications and Arts panels & workshops
Social Media in Conservation
Chair: Faye Vogely
Science Communications Panel
Chair: Megan Shersby
Panelists TBA
'Find your platform, raise your voice: A step by step guide to becoming a Nature Communicator’
Chair: Lucy Colclough
Policy and Science panels and workshops
Campaigning and Advocacy Workshop
Chairs: Matt Williams and Natasha Yorke Edgell
Please note: the speaker line-up for our conference is subject to change, we will be updating the website accordingly.
Attendees can now sign up on the Sched app to register for sessions. Click or tap here to sign up.
Friday Night Evening Event
After the first day of the conference we will be holding an evening event at the Natural History Museum. It will be a climatic end to an inspiring and exciting first day.
In collaboration with WWF UK we will be showcasing the lesser seen content from the hugely successful Our Planet Netflix documentary. This will set out the key priorities for 2020 that young people - and indeed all of society - need to be focused on to achieve the scale of change needed to protect our future.
Additionally there will be a performance from a choir and short talks from the winners of the Young Wildlife Photographer Awards. Refreshments will also be available.
Timings still to be confirmed. Below is an introduction to some of our speakers!
Practical Conservation
Pioneering and renowned conservationist Derek is currently working on a range of water vole, beaver, wildcat, harvest mouse, white stork and burbot reintroductions.
As a conservationist for the Kent Wildlife Trust, Rory will do a talk entitled 'Clusters for Landscape scale conservation. Saving wildlife field by field'
Emily our great mentor coordinator will be introducing our mentoring scheme, showcasing some of it's successes and how it can help you!
This team from the University of Sussex will present their new project 'Wild Adventures: Engaging young people in nature'
Young campaigner and wildlife lover Finley will present a talk called 'The Good, The Bad and The Future – a young marine conservationist’s story'
Conservationist from 'The Conservation Volunteers' and coordinator of the Richmond Extinction Rebellion Group, Laura will talk about how the atmosphere around conservation needs to change to support young conservationists
Young conservationist and author Alex will do a talk entitled 'Get your boots on' about how to maintain interest in nature after secondary school
Celine is a conservationist from the Zoological Society London, who works on their European Freshwater Programme
Raisin is a conservationist from the RSPB, who will talk about Raptors in trouble and how you can save them!
The young team from Wild Intrigue will talk about how they are successfully engaging people in nature in innovative and pioneering ways
Botanical specialist in an ecology consultancy, Joshua is the project coordinator for the North-West Rare Plants Initiative, saving endangered plants with Natural England
Laura Kravac is the Programme Manager at Action for Conservation, a UK charity empowering the next generation of environmental leaders.
Conservationist with BBOWT Wildlife Trust and Hazel Hill Wood, Charley will talk about how to make a career in conservation
Communication and the Arts
Identification and Monitoring
Lucy is a nature Communicator, who will do a workshop on how to use social media in session called 'Find your platform, raise your voice: A step by step guide to becoming a Nature Communicator’
This young team for the mobile app Pocket Pal will talk about how they are using technology to get people outdoors and learning about wildlife
Nature writer and artist Tiffany, will talk about her third book Dark Skies: A Journey into the Wild Night
BBC wildlife film maker, who has worked on productions such as Blue Planet 2 will be sharing advice on how to follow a career in wildlife film making
A Zoology Student at the University of Exeter, Amy will talk about her love for rapotors and thier conservation in Scotland in a talk titled 'My Hebridean Raptor Adventure'
Join Tom for a lecture on going pro as a wildlife photographer. Talking though the practicalities as well as the hardships of life as a professional
Lead for the Conservation Optimism Summit, Julia will talk about how this movement has the potential to improve conservation and make it more appealing to a younger audience
Development Manager for ICON films, talking about how to get into the world of wildlife film making and how this can help save the natural world
MSc Student at the University of Exeter and presenter of the highly successful student led Nature Watch film series
Kabir is a 14 year old wildlife enthusiast from London, who loves all aspects of nature, but in particular, Ornithology and Urban Ecology. He has been developing fantastic maps which showcase London's wildlife
Renowned environmental campaigner will be joining our plenary panel, youth for our planet
The talk will draw on ecological survey work that has been carried out across the West midlands over the past two years
Faye is the social media manager at the British Trust for Ornithology, sharing the trust's work across a variety of channels. She will lead a social media and conservation workshop
Creative communication in conservation; the art of our oceans
Steph is the UK Biodiversity Training Manager with the Natural History Museum at the AMC. She will talk about the great ways you can engage with this amazing resource
FSC BioLinks Project Manager Keiron led the recent successful recording workshop and will be reporting back while also encouraging people to engage with ecological recording.
Plantlife project officer and lichen expert April will talk about the great work she does to inspire people about plants and encourage their protection.
Ryan is passionate about e-identification, monitoring and recording of species. He has submitted over 30,000 species record and will do a talk called 'Dots on the map: what’s the point in recording wildlife?
May is the project officer with the Butterfly Conservation Trust and will be leading a workshop titled 'Combining butterflies, brilliance, and bundles of energy. How to design a successful project that will engage young people'
Policy and Science
Founding member of the UK Youth Climate Coalition, a campaigner, organiser currently the environmental policy specialist for the National Trust. Matt will be leading a workshop on campaigning and advocacy.
Paul is a barrister who is bringing his love for the natural world into his work by founding Lawyers for Nature and campaigning for the natural world to have legal rights. He will be talking about how now is the time to give legal rights to nature
Policy advisor for DEFRA, Richard will be talking about how young people can engage with policy and potentially pursue as a career.
Young Farmer and nature writer Ben will be talking about how the future of farming could help save nature.
Marine Conservation Societies Scotland Conservation Officer, Catherine will be talking about how to engage people and policy in saving our seas and coastline
Conservation overseas
An introduction to Orcalab, reseaching Cetaceans in British Columbia
The motivations and practices of nature photography: A Canadian perspective
Sawfishes in Bangladesh: perished and then protected, the urgent need for preservation pioneered by locals