Marc Carlton Trustee since 2012

Marc is a private gardener who has been passionate about plants and gardens since he was a small boy. It took him many years to fully understand that flowers did not evolve for the benefit of humans but simply as a means to facilitate pollination, but for the last decade or so learning about the relationship between flowers and their pollinators and trying to spread that knowledge more widely gardeners has been a main focus of his interests. He worked for many years in a variety of roles in the Civil Service, mainly to do with policy and statistics.

Dr Steve Head Forum Coordinator since 2007

Steve is an invertebrate zoologist and general ecologist with a particular interest in gardening and helping people at every level to understand the importance of garden wildlife. He was a founder member of the Forum and the Steering Group, and managed the Forum and its conferences for several years.

Steve has a lecturing background in Universities in the UK, Jamaica and Oman, subsequently leading conservation NGOs and managing their development. Steve was for 8 years a Secretary of State Member on the Exmoor National Park Authority.  He lectures and runs courses on wildlife gardening and is particularly proud of leading a team that won Gold and Best in Show for a Courtyard Garden at Chelsea 2010.

Dr Andrew Salisbury Trustee since 2011 Chair of Trustee

Principal Entomologist, Royal Horticultural Society. Andrew has been an entomologist with the RHS since 1998, gaining a PhD from Imperial College on the lily beetle (Lilioceris lilii) in 2008 as part of that role. Andrew’s primary interests are Coleoptera (beetles) and garden ecology. In addition to providing advice on garden animal related matters, a major part of Andrew’s work involves researching the value of gardens for wildlife, including what to plant and coordinating the RHS Plants for Pollinators campaign.

Adrian Thomas Trustee since 2012

Adrian  is the RSPB's face and voice of gardening for wildlife, author of RSPB Gardening for Wildlife, monthly columnist for Garden Answers magazine and one of the judges for BBC Gardeners World magazine Garden of the Year. But most importantly he is a passionate, hands-on wildlife gardener! Particular interests are: how to engage and inspire the general public; the value of garden plants for wildlife; how to dispel the myth that a wildlife garden has to be messy; and how to integrate wildlife gardening with all the other things that people want their gardens to be.

Dr Ken Thompson Trustee since 2010

Ken has retired from his Senior Lectureship at the Department of Animal and Plant Sciences at Sheffield University. An international expert in seed science, he was a leader in the seminal “Biodiversity in Urban Gardens (BUGS)” project which has firmly established the significance of ordinary British gardens for biodiversity. He is a founder member of the Forum and on its Steering Group since 2005, and played a major role in considering research needs and in the design of the current “Plants for Bugs” project at RHS Wisley.

Ken is a prolific and engaging author, with popular titles on garden ecology including “The Book of Weeds”, “An Ear to The Ground: Understanding Your Garden”, “Compost” and the brilliant “No Nettles Required - the reassuring truth about wildlife gardening”.

Caroline Ware Trustee since 2010

Caroline is Wildlife Gardener and Ecologist at the Natural History Museum, in charge of their superb Wildlife Garden. News about the garden can be read on the Museum website and regular wildlife garden blog. Caroline was a founder member of the Forum and on its Steering Group since 2005, and has played host to many of our most successful conferences. She is an Implementation Member of The London Biodiversity Partnership. Caroline is a licenced Volunteer Bat Roost Visitor and contributes data regularly to BCT's National Bat Monitoring Programme and is an active member of the Kent Bat Group.

Judith Conroy  Trustee from 2018

A long-time organic gardener with a particular interest in pollinators and other garden wildlife, Judith is a researcher at Coventry University's Centre for Agroecology, Water and Resilience. Having worked on their Blooms for Bees project, she is currently involved with two Horizon 2020 projects: one researching legumes as forage for pollinators and as food for people, and another to find solutions for contentious inputs in organic growing.

Judith has also written and currently teaches an organic gardening qualification, and is a regular contributor to Grow Your Own magazine and Garden Organic's The Organic Way.

Adam Cormack  Trustee from 2018

Adam leads the central communications team at The Wildlife Trusts, one of the UK’s largest nature conservation NGOs. A firm believer in the power of communication as an act of conservation, he has worked at The Wildlife Trusts for 10 years after a music career that didn’t quite take off.

Adam has overseen a range of large-scale communications projects and worked on campaigns for protected areas in UK seas, wildflower meadows and recently the Trusts’ successful 30 Days Wild campaign. He can be found rambling around local wild places close to home in Nottinghamshire and Lincolnshire, often with his children, in search of inspiration, joy and insights into the natural world. Also fond of cycling and running.

Dr David Perkins   Trustee from 2018

David has been Environmental Education and Gardens Manager at Roots and Shoots since 1999.  Roots and Shoots is a Central London charity devoted to improving the lives of young people with difficulties and giving the communities of North Lambeth the chance to experience a bit of 'wildness'. 

He manages the 1.5 acre site to provide all kinds of opportunities for natural history learning by a mixture of tolerance, careful observation and a lot of hard graft.  As well as striving to provide rich and varied habitats, he also hosts school and community group visits to the site, runs occasional longer-term education projects, organises open days and keeps the 'wildlife classroom' displays relevant and engaging.

Morag Shuaib    Trustee from 2018

Morag Shuaib has always loved landscapes and nature, and as an adult, that passion extended to wildlife gardening. With a background in ecology and conservation, Morag has worked with The Wildlife Trusts, where she was involved in setting up Wild About Gardens, and co-ordinated The Big Wildlife Garden Competition.

As a volunteer for Avon Wildlife Trust’s wildflower grasslands projects, Morag learned a lot about linking up landscapes for nature. She remains deeply interested in this approach, and in the way gardens can be seen as small patches that, linked together, add up to a greater whole.

Recently Morag has been focusing on writing, and on recreating her small urban garden.

Deborah Smith  Trustee from 2018

Deborah Smith is particularly interested in human impacts on the natural world and our disconnection from it.  She sees wildlife gardening as one therapeutic way to mend ourselves and the planet by considering the lives and needs of other species.  She has an RHS Diploma in Horticulture, and puts that into practice in her own four acre plot, combining permaculture principles with wildlife gardening and small scale animal rescue.

Having once worked for The Body Shop in relation to their Fair Trade policies and practices, Deborah went on to advise multinational corporations on how to improve their own environmental and social impacts, both in their direct operations and through global supply chains.