A thought-provoking evening with EA Festival and some of the UK’s leading environmental experts, as we explore the importance of rewilding and regenerative agriculture for UK ecosystems.
Three experts at the leading edge of rewilding and nature recovery explain the new ecological and financial paradigms for restoring biodiversity to landscapes and agriculture – and why it is so important. What is “nature recovery”? How does it apply to different landscapes? How do we measure it? Most important, how do we fund it? Those are just some of the questions that we will answer during this session. The benefits of restoring ecological health are incontrovertible. The challenge is devising business models and investment regimes that make nature recovery feasible and commercially viable.
The event includes a free drink on arrival. The one-hour discussion will commence at 7pm followed by an audience Q&A.
Small dishes and drinks will be available to purchase from the bar afterwards. If you would like to reserve a table, please contact hello.corner@tate.org.uk
About EA Festival Conversations
This talk is part of our EA Festival Conversations series. These intimate monthly events explore the pressing topics of our time.
Charlie Burrell
A pioneer of rewilding, Charlie Burrell, is an English landowner, conservationist and founder of the Knepp Wildland, the first large-scale lowland rewilding project in England, which was created in the early 2000s when he stopped conventional farming on 3,500 acres (1,400 ha) of land surrounding the ancestral family home at Knepp Castle in West Sussex. He is Chair of Foundation Conservation Carpathia, and on the advisory board of The Arcadia Fund, as well as the oversight committee for the Endangered Landscapes and Seascapes Programme. He is chair of The White Stork Project, Knepp Wildland Foundation, and Nattergal Ltd. and Vice Chair of rePLANET and Trustee to the Argolic Environment Foundation. He is on the Supervisory Board of Rewilding Europe.
Ben Goldsmith
Ben is a passionate environmentalist and the chief executive of London-listed, green-themed investment trust, Menhaden Resource Efficiency PLC. With Charlie Burrell, he co-founded Nattergal Ltd, a natural capital company focused on restoring ecosystems at scale. Ben founded and chairs Conservation Collective, a growing network of locally-focused environment foundations; and is a Trustee of the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation. Ben chairs the UK Conservative Environment Network and was a non-executive director of the U.K. Government's Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) from 2018 to 2022. Complementing his green investment and philanthropy, he launched Rewilding the World, a podcast on that subject, in 2021.
Alicia Gibson
Alicia is a Director at Finance Earth, a mission-driven social enterprise, working in partnership with public, private and third sector organisations to finance nature recovery globally. Alicia has been active in building the emerging market for high impact investment in nature protection and enhancement since 2017. She has designed and implemented a wide-range of financing structures to support climate and nature, including the UK Nature Accelerator programme to help nature projects secure investment; the Greater Manchester Environment Fund to blend and align public, philanthropic and private capital across a city region; and the Wildlife Trust habitat banking investment model to unlock income for nature recovery. Alicia is a key member of initiatives supporting high integrity nature markets, including the Wilder Carbon Standard, the UK Saltmarsh Code, the Nature Market Principles and delivery of a Roadmap towards High-Integrity Marine Natural Capital Markets. Alicia previously qualified as a Chartered Accountant at Deloitte, where she provided audit and advisory services to private equity-backed businesses.
EA Festival is the producer of two biennial festivals, EA Festival, an ideas and literary festival, and EA Sustain, a festival about Environment, Culture and Entrepreneurship. Both festivals feature top thought leaders, authors and performers and EA Festival is the top festival of its kind in the East of England.
Please arrive via The Corner Bar entrance on the North/Riverside of the building.
The ticket includes a free drink upon arrival and we suggest arriving at 18:30
The one-hour talk will commence at 19:00 and will take place in the adjacent Starr Auditorium.
Small plates and drinks are availabe to purchase at the bar after the event. If you would like to reserve a table, please contact hello.corner@tate.org.uk
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