OUR team

Chris has spent much of his life working for social justice and the environment, since 2007 through a charity he formed called OceansWatch, which focused its work in the SW Pacific islands.

Chris spent many years in New Zealand where he developed a 210 acre organic farm, then fenced off an 80 acre of forest which he covenanted in perpetuity with the NZ National Trust. 

During his farming life Chris also developed a national organic consultancy and farm services franchise business to ISO 9000 standards.

He currently shares 300 acres of land in NZ where he has planted thousands of trees and is currently developing spaces for Tiny Houses.

Chris now spends ½ his life back in the SW UK and is passionate about rewilding. He wants to empower and resource people throughout the UK to start their own rewilding projects with The Rewilding Collective.

When not working on the land Chris works as a professional yacht captain and was captain for Greenpeace.

 Leilani is passionate about supporting groups in establishing dynamic, distributed forms of governance - i.e. how we organise and make decisions together in empowering, participatory ways. 

She is a professional facilitator, and governance consultant, currently supporting The Rewilding Collective, Totnes Climate Hub and a Regenerative Community project as well as being a long-term activist with Extinction Rebellion. Her facilitation and governance roles have been enhanced by a professional background in psychotherapy.  

 Leilani has a personal connection with Carrifran Wildwood, a long-standing project in Scotland that her parents were central in initiating in the 1990s, which has fostered her interest and enthusiasms about rewilding.  

She thrives on in-person connection through profound shared purpose; practical physical work (construction and food growing); sacred singing and conscious dance; and has two decades of lived experience of intentional community. 

Ash Brown is a serial entrepreneur who has been working in the world of ecosystem restoration since 2016. 

She co-founded Ecosystem Restoration Communities (ERC), a global grassroot movement of over 80 ecosystem restoration initiatives, at the age of 26. 

In that time, she created and grew the organisation from the ground to where it is today. 

As part of her work with the ERC, she co-created the UK’s first in depth rewilding training, known as The Rewilding Training, and trains 50 people a year to become rewilding consultants and practitioners across the UK and Europe. 

Ash is passionate about supporting people whose hearts are calling for a return to the land, away from unsustainable and unhealthy lifestyles, towards a life of meaning, purpose and hope.

She also offers her knowledge to private clients as a consultant herself with her consultancy company, Ash Brown Wilding, creating rewilding management plans for land managers and helping them implement them.

Nick’s love of nature, wildlife and wilderness developed through farming and conservation in North Yorkshire, the Cotswolds and the sub-tropics of Queensland, Australia. Nick has primarily lived and worked in rural communities, passionate that they and their connection to land must thrive. Whenever possible, you’ll find him at his happiest in the mountains or out on the ocean.

Originally a sheep farmer, with degrees in Architecture and Education, Nick taught Infant years’ children before engaging in major investment management. Now a director of a global consultancy, Nick’s had a thirty-year career advising on investment in land, infrastructure, energy and transformation programmes throughout the public, commercial and voluntary sectors. With a background across Asia, Australia and the UK, he is now based in Scotland.

His previous trusteeships include co-founding the national agency for recovery of the UK’s urban green space, the Australian Property Council’s Committee for Cities and the Committee For Brisbane, advocating for sustainable land use strategies and social value. A member the Australian 2032 Olympic Legacy committee but Nick is most proud of his trustee work on local Village Hall committees in both Australia and UK, using local resources to bring together diverse local communities.

 Mothiur is a non practising solicitor, founder of New Economy Law and lecturer in environmental law and corporate social responsibility at the University of Law, the largest provider of legal education in the UK. 

He trained as a solicitor at a top 20 global law firm and specialised in planning, environmental and public law at a top 50 London law firm with a focus on public authorities and the marine environment. He was co-convenor of the Water Working Party for UKELA (United Kingdom Environmental Law Association). 

However, Mothiur's passion is working with the law in innovative ways to build meaningful projects that enrich people and planet. He co-founded the Community Chartering Network to safeguard Scottish communities against fracking, supporting the community through a public inquiry for the first commercial fracking operations, leading to the defeat of Ineos and a national ban on fracking by the Scottish Government. He was a coordinator of the national political strategy team for XR leading to its launch in April 2019 and helping set the foundations for the social movement's pioneering activism. 

More locally, he has supported Nudge Community Builders in Plymouth with advice on setting up a Community Land Bank and supported the "Why This Field" campaign (WTF) with legal advice to prevent the sale of a local greenfield site in Totnes. As well as his consultancy work (https://www.neweconomylaw.org/) he designed and teaches on the Environmental Law LLM module at the University of Law and teaches both undergraduates and postgraduate law students. 

We are on the lookout for up to 3 new directors. We could do with someone with more financial acumen, people with major kudos in the rewilding world and super organised admin folk.