Meet our team
The trust currently employs a team of more than 50 staff, who collectively have a diverse breadth of experience and high-level expertise. It is in the wealth of knowledge and experience of the trust staff where our real strength lies.Leadership Team
Laurence specialises in the ecosystems approach. He is passionate about joining up delivery to achieve integrated catchment management, where what society needs from our land is holistically considered.
Bruce has spent many years restoring the rivers of the Westcountry. He works to make our rivers a better place for fish to live in, and for people to enjoy, while supporting the charity in its operational activity.
Nick specialises in the visualisation and communication of strategic and scientific information to target actions into the most important areas and predict/measure the improvements that might be realised.
Support Team
Sarah focuses on the integral management of the trust’s core accounts. She ensures all administration responsibilities are fulfilled to the highest standard
Victoria is responsible for maintaining, collating and submitting project claims and providing finance admin support, including timesheet and expenses processing.
Kasia oversees HR and is involvedin recruitment and staff support, including
interviews, inductions and the trust’s HR system.
Kerensa maintains project finances, EU-funded claims, and trust assets. She is fluent in German and Russian with an understanding of French and Spanish.
Emily oversees our reception and day-to-day office admin and supports the finance and asset teams. She is an amateur beekeeper, enjoys cycling and paddle boarding.
Liz assists the HR Manager
in recruitment and staff support. She coordinates
the induction process, as
well as maintaining the
trust’s HR system.
Steve oversees H&S queries and concerns, co-ordinating training, volunteer safety and accident reporting. He enjoys surfing, paddleboarding, cycling, and travelling.
Comms & Marketing team
Josie has a background in photography and
journalism combined with several years of comms
and marketing management experience. Josie also handles Trust-wide comms, press and media.
Ella has experience in environment-related comms and marketing and supports project campaigns and social media. Alongside Trust-wide comms, Ella works with projects such as Plymouth River Keepers and Connecting the Culm.
Liam looks after the website behind the scenes, and website creation. He also supports individual projects with their comms & marketing requirements. Liam delivers comms for projects including the Preventing Plastic Pollution project.
Fisheries & Rivers Team
Olivia joined the Trust in 2011 to conduct fisheries habitat walkover surveys on the River Teign, in which over 100km of the river catchment was surveyed. Since then, Olivia has managed several river restoration projects, fish pass projects and monitoring across South Devon and Dorset, including a large Catchment Restoration Fund project, DTRIP.
Matt undertakes surveys to inform and implement appropriate actions for improvements to water quality and in river habitats.
Scott is Team Leader for the Wessex area. He has over 20 years of experience in fisheries with a specific interest in eels and coarse fish conservation. His expertise lie in developing scientific studies as well as delivering practical fisheries work. He is a member of the Institute of Fisheries Management (IFM) and is the Chair of the South West branch.
Sam is involved in both the fisheries and operations team, working on a wide array of projects including habitat works, weir removals and studies such as electrofishing and trapping. He is particularly interested in migratory species and the challenges they face.
Polly is an aquatic consultant with extensive experience of both marine and freshwater ecological surveys, specialising in fisheries and the ecology of the European Eel (Anguilla angilla). She is also a Research Fellow at Exeter University, working towards developing a non-lethal method to sex adult eels for the managent of the fishery.
Phil has a varied background working in rivers, including environmental contracting, flood defence and fisheries management. With particular interest in improving habitat connectivity, Phil is works on the Strategic Exe Weirs (SEW) project and is keen to delve into the technical aspects of fisheries management in Westcountry rivers.
James is responsible for delivering the Fish Pass app as part of the Water For Growth project. He grew up fishing in Westcountry rivers and reservoirs, spending much of his time at his grandparents’ trout fishery. This fostered his interest in ecosystems and habitat management.
Ben is the River Operations Team manager, using his background in environmental science and arboriculture to deliver a wide range of river habitat works across river catchments.
Adrian is primarily involved in managing fish pass installations. He has a keen interest in all river-ologies and the technical delivery of long-term sustainable improvements to rivers and catchments.
Craig assists with river and habitat surveys, semi and fully quantitative electrofishing surveys and SNIFFER surveys of weirs. He helps with data analysis, produces GIS maps and creates reports for projects. He works closely with the River Ops team on riparian and river habitat restoration and improvments.
Layla has worked with the Trust since 2011, managing and delivering river restoration projects across Devon and Cornwall. Her background and interest lies in conservation biology and ecology; this supports her role conducting ecological impact assessments and delivering fish passage improvements across the Fowey and Camel catchments for the Water For Growth project.
Mia has worked with the Trust since 2018 and she has interests in wild fisheries management and public education. In her role, she primarily assists and leads in a variety of fishery focused surveys. Mia also works to identify, assist and manage river habitat and fisheries improvement projects.
Rob is the Operations Team Leader, working on the delivery of riparian habitat works, tree planting and natural flood management for various projects. Rob’s interests lie in understanding how trees create and change habitats and the ecosystems that they are part of.
Henry is the Programme Supervisor for the Operations Team. Drawing on his experience in land management, he supports the Team Manager in delivering and coordinating river habitat work, including natural flood management across a wide range of projects.
George works as part of the River Ops team supporting riparian tree works alongside in-river and habitat work.
George works as part of the River Ops team supporting their works delivering tree work, in-river habitat works, tree planting and wildlife surveys. He has a background in conservation biology, that gives him knowledge that he brings with him into his role.
Fergus works with the River Ops team as an Arboricultural Apprentice. He has a background in conservation biology and he brings this with him into his work on restoring river habitats and surveys.
David works as a River Woodland Officer and has a background in aquatic conservation and land management. He brings this knowledge with him into his role delivering a variety of river enhancement projects.
Nick is one of the Trust’s River Woodland Officers. His primary role is to support woodland creation within the Tamar catchment and assisting with soil carbon work. Nick has a background in native woodland creation.
Evidence & Engagement Team
With a background in ecology and environmental management, Lucy’s main interests lie in spatial planning and the development of schemes. Lucy’s specialisms include data analysis, visulisation and communications.
Ian is an organic/analytical chemist. He joined the Trust in 2019 after a long career in the water industry where he specialised in the monitoring of trace organic micro-pollutants and provided background chemical expertisein a number of different fields. His primary role at the Trust is helping to deliver the monitoring data needed to support a range of projects.
Freya’s background is in environmental consultancy and interpretation planning. She is the project officer for PROWater. This cross-border project will protect and restore raw water sources through actions at the landscape scale.
Sarah works on the Connecting the Culm project. She oversees stakeholder and community engagement; providing supporting events and helping to on the co-creation the Blueprint for the Culm. Her background is in physical geography and earth science and engineering.
Sarah specialises in the use of GIS to analyse and display spatial datasets (e.g. fish populations, habitat types and water quality) in order to monitor the health of river systems and identify areas of improvement.
Nicola is a Senior Ecologist at Tamar Ecology with over 2o years of consultancy experience. She has particular expertise in managing surveys for large scale development projects and coordinating ecological impact assessments across a diverse range of sectors.
Frank specialises in spatial analysis and mapping using GIS and in environmental data analysis and visualisation using the statistical programming software R.
Emily’s background is in wildlife conservation. At the Trust, Emily works on a variety of projects including the natural capital element of the LIFE ReMEDIES project and biodiversity analysis for the Upstream Thinking project. Emily is also involved with collating and presenting data for evidence reviews and undertaking opportunity mapping.
Jenny’s background is in ecological consultancy and green infrastucture. Within the Trust, she is Project Officer for the Plymouth River Keepers (PRK) project based in north-west Plymouth, in the Tamar Management Catchment.
Lydia works with the monitoring team, collecting and analysing water quality data, installing monitoring equipment and running the Westcountry CSI volunteer monitoring scheme. She also works on the EU Interreg Preventing Plastic Pollution project.
Holly specialises in water quality monitoring and environmental data analysis. She assists the team both in reporting on the effectiveness of interventions and targeting areas of improvement, and monitoring and maintaining sensors deployed in various catchments under investigation.
Jo’s background is in biogeochemistry of aquatic environments with interests in the cycling of nutrients, carbon and trace metals. She is working on water quality in catchments such as the Tamar, Camel and Axe e.g. projects including EU TransformAR, Upstream Thinking and Green Recovery.
Perry provides on-the-ground education and engagement activities predominately within the Tamar Valley. He is currently involved with three projects; Plymouth River Keepers, Preventing Plastic Pollution and River Explorers, a project with the wider TAMARA Landscape Partnership.
Anna helps to facilitate the local stakeholder partnerships as well as working to engage the public with the work the Trust does. She also assists with the delivery of educational projects.
Oakley works with the monitoring team on visualising data and streamling data management. He also works on creating maps and spatial analysis using GIS. Oakley also help with Westcountry CSI.
Sam works as a Junior Evidence and Engagement Offcer and works with the monitoring team to assist with the deployment of monitoring equipment and analysis of water quality data. Sam also works with the GIS team to help produce maps for projects. He also helps with the running of the Westcountry CSI volunteer scheme.
Land Management Team
Charlie oversees the Upstream Thinking Project and works with a team of farm advisors and external partners to deliver bespoke farm solutions to water quality issues in multiple catchments across the South West. Charlie was brought up on, and lives on, Dartmoor and is passionate about working with people and communities in the South West to recover its wildlife and biodiversity.
Martin has worked in the Rivers Trust movement for over 20 years, in all aspects of catchment management. He has a wide experience of farming, forestry, fisheries and natural flood management.
Ross has worked for the trust as a Farm Advisor since 2002 and specialises in delivering cost-beneficial solutions to watercourse protection and best-practice advice on farms across the Westcountry
Harriet works in the Tamar catchment as a member of the farm advisory team. She has a background in biological sciences and agricultural technology and has previously developed tools to help farmers achieve healthier, more resilient farm businesses.
Giles delivers both catchment scale improvements such as Upstream Thinking and fisheries management actions. Giles has a good understanding of both agricultural systems and fisheries habitat monitoring and enhancement.
Yog has considerable experience in engaging and delivering advice to farmers through one-to-one visits, developing whole farm plans, running farming workshops and presentations to wider stakeholders including private companies, community interest groups and students
Annabel is part of the farm advisory team, specialising in soil and nutrient management and advising farmers on fencing watercourses and improving yard infrastructure.
John is a Senior Natural Capital Advisor specialising in farm advice to deliver nature-based solutions across different catchments. With a background in agricultural research, he has interests in soil health, manure and slurry management, and integrated farm management. He also has expertise in nutrient management planning and crop protection.
James is involved in the Channel Payments for Ecosystem Services programme, working with land managers to improve water quality, with win-win outcomes for farmers, businesses, the environment and society.
Wendy works on the Dart and Otter catchments and has a background in agri-environment advice alongside a variety of practical farming experience. She is passionate about facilitating nature-based solutions through collaborations with local farmers.
Zoë support both the land and rivers teams in delivering nature-based solutions across different catchments. Her background is in landscape architecture, environmental management and arboriculture. She believes the work of the Trust should help our landscapes to become healthier and even more multifunctional.
Corrie is primarily responsible for the delivery on the Connecting the Culm project which is focused on reducing flood risk through nature-based solutions. Her background lies in ecology and conservation and she is a keen advocate of landscape-scale approaches to environmental challenges.
Rafael oversees the delivery of the Upstream Thinking Project for the Tavy, Upper Lyd, Lew and Dart catchments. His background is in environmental biology, community-based forestry and agroforestry. Rafael is currently conducting a PhD in Ecology and Agri-environmental research within the University of Reading, looking at the environmental, social, and ecological impacts of integrating trees in farms in England.
Mel is the project administrator for Upstream Thinking 3 and the Green Recovery Project for the Tavy Catchment. She has a varied background including scientific research in earth sciences and environmental change, council and project administration and strong family links with farming.
George supports the land and rivers teams on various projects and is currently working on nature-based solutions. He has knowledge and experience of farming and environmental practices that he brings with him in this role.