Meet the Team
The Tir Natur team came together with a shared passion for nature recovery, and a collective understanding of the scale of the problem we are facing.
If you are interested in joining the Tir Natur team, or contributing in some way, then please get in touch by emailing team@tirnatur.cymru. We are particularly interested in skills and backgrounds such as farming, conservation, fundraising and running a social media account.
Stephen Jenkins (Chair of Trustees)
Stephen is a business owner, born and based in Pembrokeshire where he has also embarked on his own nature recovery project – 'Rooting For Nature' - working with pigs on an area of Common land to clear a monoculture of bracken and regenerate the latent seed bank. Stephen enjoyed bringing together all the various stakeholders with different interests to make the project possible.
It was this project that guided Stephen towards rewilding, as the pigs are filling the essential ecological niche once provided by wild boar.
“Rewilding is the only approach that measures up to the scale of the nature and climate crises we have created – it has captured people’s imagination, and given them hope that our futures can be more nature-rich".
Tom Glyn Roberts (Trustee)
Siôn Elis Williams (Trustee)
Siôn works for ‘My Society’ as part of the Climate team, where he’s overseeing the all-important mission of reaching out and building contacts across many different networks and communities. “I work to ensure that potential beneficiaries — including local authority officers and councillors and individual citizens — learn about and get maximum benefit from our work, and that we scope projects that complement and support them. This includes outreach to climate organisations, supporting journalists and policy reseachers”.
Prior to 'My Society', Siôn worked at Friends of the Earth, working across multiple campaigns, advocating for everything from bees to trees. Siôn is also an active foodie, a member of the Management Committee for Cardiff National Park City & a Trustee for Adfree Cities.
Tasha Reilly (Trustee)
Tom is realising a lifetime ambition to create a small nature reserve through natural restoration. He acquired an 11-acre sheep farm in Ceredigion and is busy creating ponds and planting native trees and wildflower meadows – with an emphasis on rare Welsh species such as the black poplar and alder buckthorn trees, and the near-extinct Deptford pink, corncockle, Dyer’s greenweed, small-flowered catchfly, autumn squill and other wildflowers. The reserve is a home for recovering hedgehogs released from a local animal hospital.
Tom’s previous career was making international documentaries during which he accumulated well over a 100 broadcast credits as a director/producer. He founded the indie production company October Films.
David Kilner
David is an environmental educator, ecologist, community & climate activist with experience in landscape scale regeneration of Wales' sand dune system. Currently developing Wales' largest species recovery project - Natur am Byth! 10 years experience of community engagement & delivery work on health, conservation and growing projects.
'It's never been more important to ensure access of opportunity for all, to our wild spaces, to nature on our doorstep - it is healing, it feeds us and breathes for us. We all benefit from its beautiful, entangled web."
I am a farmer, and manage a 70-acre project in Carmarthenshire where I am developing a model for a farm that will run with 60% of the land in beef and pork production as well as agroforestry and the remaining 40% will support and increase biodiversity. I wholeheartedly support rewilding in Wales and working with other farmers and landowners to increase our natural capital.
My career started as a plant scientist at Kew Gardens and my love for the natural world was born. I have gone full circle as I am currently studying an environmental science degree with the Open University. My interest in rewilding started at a workshop in Glen Affric in 2018 and I am still learning.
Gethin Jenkins-Jones
Hey! Geth here.. I'm a Youth Representative (South Wales) for the British Trust for Ornithology (BTO), and a lifelong wildlife enthusiast. I am also a graduate of 'Ecology and Conservation Biology' at Exeter University.
Through reading and studying I have grown to realise the incredible value of biodiversity for our economy, heritage and wellbeing. Communication is a very big interest of mine, and I believe the more nature-lovers communicate with others, the more optimistic our future will be.
Beverley Phillips
Fern Towers
Bev is a Wildlife Conservationist with a passion for UK native wildlife. After studying conservation in Bristol, Bev has worked for a variety of wildlife charities in both education/engagement and ecological roles over the past ten years, gaining experience in marine, coastal, wetland and sand dune habitats and species.
"Witnessing the decline of UK species in my lifetime and realising how little wildlife actually remains in the UK is terrifying. Wherever I look, from woodlands to freshwater and marine environments, species are declining. ‘Rewilding restores these damaged eco systems and is about all of us finding solutions to live and work within healthy, resilient, species rich environments."
Fern is based in Mid-Wales and currently manages a local charity promoting nature-connection and wellbeing through social and therapeutic horticulture.
She has an academic background in social anthropology and psychoanalysis, and is interested in studying the societal dimensions of environmental challenges. After graduating she worked in agroecological farming in Northern Ireland, an experience which encouraged her to further research the relationship between wildlife and farming via her current Masters in Ecology and Sustainability at the Centre for Alternative Technology.
Her love for rewilding stems from a childhood of birdwatching with her dad, finding pockets of wilderness in unexpected places around Birmingham.
Richard Wheat
Dan Ward
Dan is a systems thinking and multidisciplinary specialist. An experienced ecologist, he worked in the environment and conservation sector on river catchment and landscape scale projects, before moving on to work on national ecosystem resilience and nature based solutions/ecosystem services policy for Natural Resources Wales.
Dan is skilled at stakeholder engagement, working with multiple stakeholders with competing and sometimes conflicting interests. Working through Wicked problems and complexity to realise opportunities and solutions that deliver multiple benefits.
With a background in fine art and television production, Rich brings a creative energy to Tir Natur. He is passionate about finding practical solutions to the biodiversity and climate crises and is focused on ways to rekindle people’s often broken relationship with nature. He came up with the concept for our Interactive Ecosystems, as a way to engage a new audience with rewilding, creating a dynamic, stimulating approach to education and fundraising.
He lives in South Pembrokeshire on a smallholding dedicated to nature restoration, complete with traditional hay meadows, ponds and overgrown hedgerows.
