Wiet de Bruijn

Chairman

Wiet de Bruijn (51), residing in Huizen (The Netherlands), is an entrepreneurial investor with, amongst others, active interests in wildlife conservation and agriculture. Wiet developed a love for nature through experiencing its beauty and splendour first hand while fishing and hunting as a young man with his father.

At the age of 21, Wiet soon realised that he had an acute understanding of business and started to initiate and develop various businesses. In the last 15 years Wiet has acted as an active shareholder and/or board member in a number of for-profit companies and for a number of years he invests time and money in non-profit initiatives as well.

In 2010 Wiet got involved in the Marakele Contractual National Park conservation initiative in South-Africa. This Park, which covers an area of more than 65.000 hectares, is located in the breath-taking Waterberg-area, situated in the northern part of the Limpopo province. This project has many similarities to Rewilding Europe, considering the challenges both initiatives face. The Marakele Park management seeks long-term sustainable financial income to reinvest in the park by developing tourism and breeding indigenous animals.

Simultaneously Wiet also plays a key role in a large agricultural farm in Ukraine. Through this project he is able to combine business and teaching people the philosophy with regards to mutual respect between man and nature.

All this led him to the Rewilding Europe initiative, where he will support Rewilding Europe with his experience and network in the Dutch business community to develop the initiative.

As the chairman of the Supervisory Board, Wiet expects to be a powerful asset to the Rewilding Europe project, not only as an entrepreneur/businessman, but also with his love for conservation.

Odile Rodríguez de la Fuente

Member

Odile Rodríguez de la Fuente was the vice-president, founder and general director of Fundación Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente in Spain (2004-2016). She went to high school in Spain, England and Switzerland, a worldwide association of schools called RoundSquare.

Odile holds a BS in Biological Sciences (1994) and a BA in Cinema Production (1995) graduating Cum Laude from the University of Southern California, Los Angeles. She started her career in 1996 at National Geographic Television in Washington DC as an intern, associate producer and producer. Among others, she worked on a film about rain forests in Mexico and a major, worldwide communication campaign on conservation, in collaboration with IUCN.

In 2004, she was the Director of Scientific Film Awards of Ronda, the first initiative of its kind in Spain. In 2005 she worked as a producer at RTVE, doing a production of a two-hour documentary of the life and work of her father Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente. In 2006, she became a member of the board of WWF Spain.

In 2004 Odile founded the Fundación Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente, an important NGO in Spain, named after her father who was a very famous Spanish nature filmmaker. She has managed very ambitious projects relating environmental awareness, among them large multimedia exhibitions, a quarterly magazine “Agenda Viva”, online platforms, TV documentaries, books, apps, LIFE projects, and developed a quality brand for autochthonous breeds and plant varieties that contribute to nature conservation. She has collaborated over 4 years with a radio show about environmental matters, lectures in different conferences and writes discussion articles for mainstream Newspapers like El País or El Mundo. She is currently involved in several advisory committees and environmental workgroups in Spain. She has also been elected as one of the first “Women Visionaries” by the Wild Foundation and co-chaired the international WILD10 Congress in Spain, Salamanca 2013. Odile is currently centring her divulging efforts in climate change and how to tackle it from a positive transformative perspective.

She has recently collaborated with Mitsubishi as the main speaker in a Spanish country-wide campaign designed to raise awareness about climate change. She is a member of the scientific committee on climate change of Madrid´s Autonomous Community. She has recently been nominated for an award within the Planet 2020 I Gala in Malaga, Spain. She has just published a book with one of Spain’s main publishers, on her father’s legacy. Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente produced some very famous films and books. Unfortunately, he died in a plane crash in Alaska when Odile was only 7 years young. Odile has followed the footsteps of her father and dedicates her life to protect and to communicate about nature and its wonders.

About her father, Odile says: “I always wanted to follow on my father´s footsteps even before he left us but the impact of his sudden death probably influenced me, even more, to dedicate my life to the defence and communication of nature and its wonders. My father supposed a huge influence in Spanish conscience about conservation. He was responsible for positioning Spain as one of the pioneering countries in Europe to first have laws protecting predatory birds and wolves. If we still have wolves in Spain it is because of my father’s work both on a political level but mainly as the most popular communicator in Spain during the ’60s and ’70s. His television series “El Hombre y la Tierra” was first on ranking for the eight years they were aired in Spain, surpassing any other international documentaries (like BBC or National Geographic) in both technological and narrative style. They were seen by millions of people worldwide including countries like Russia and Japan and showed Spanish fauna and flora to Europe and the world.

On the editorial end, his best-known work was the world-wide encyclopedia “Fauna”. It was translated into 16 languages and sold more than 40 million volumes worldwide.’’

As a conservationist,  Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente was the co-founder and vice-president of WWF Spain and responsible for the preservation of many of the most important wild spots in Spain that are now National and Natural Parks. He is still a major reference in Spain and many Spanish speaking countries and his style and passion still motivate and are an inspiration to thousands.

For Rewilding Europe, Odile Rodríguez de la Fuente will have a particular role in communication and networking, representing the initiative towards certain external audiences, especially in the Mediterranean parts of Europe.  She will also help facilitating to reach certain target groups, such as major landowners/holders in the rewilding areas, national top media, and early adopters within the key government structures in Spain and Portugal.

Lena M Lindén

Member

Lena M Lindén is founder and former CEO (1988–2015) for the private non-profit foundation Nordens Ark on the west coast of Sweden, where it owns Åby manor, covering 400 hectares. Through its activities, Nordens Ark Foundation seeks to promote biological diversity principally by:

• Contributing to the conservation of endangered species by controlled breeding, and supporting wild animal population in their natural habitats through various support measures;
• Conducting research and studies of animals at the park, contributing to an increased understanding of animals and promoting animal survival in the wild;
• Acting as an educational resource at all levels from pre-school to colleges and universities;
• Being accessible to the public, thereby increasing public interest in and knowledge of conservation work.

Nordens Ark opened in 1989 and has since that reintroduced hundreds of birds, beetles, fish and mammals in Sweden and Europe and is involved in projects for Amur tigers in Russia Far East and snowleopards in Mongolia.

Lena M Lindén has Bachelor’s degree in zoology, geology, ethnography and physical geography. The degree in zoology in based on a study entitled Effects of Acidification on Salmon Trout in a stream on the West Coast of Sweden. Lena is also Honorary Doctor of the Faculty of Science at the University of Gothenburg.

On a national level, Lena is an Academy Fellow and Council member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Agriculture and Forestry.

Additional national seats:

• Board member of Mid Sweden University, Sundsvall /Östersund.
• Board member of Linnaeus Foundation, Öland.
• Senior Advisor for Rewilding Sweden / Lapland.
• Board member of Siemiatkowski Foundation.
• Board member of AB Milkywire

Lena also has a number of international seats such as:

• Member of Advisory Board of International Zoo Yearbook, Zoological Society of London;
• GCN, Global Conservation Network, Member of Board of Directors.

Lena has a special interest in Rewilding Europe because it provides a great opportunity to link her conservation ambitions for wildlife by different reintroduction programmes, where some of them are run by the zoo community. She also finds it valuable to be able to be a link between academic associations and different programs for re-establishing populations of wildlife in Europe.

Aleksandrina Leonidova Mitseva

Member

A native of Bulgaria, Aleksandrina Leonidova Mitseva recently graduated from Scotland’s University of Aberdeen with a BSc in Conservation Biology. She has a great passion and enthusiasm for nature conservation and the rewilding of ecosystems.

In Bulgaria Aleksandrina studied at the Saint Luca National School of Applied Arts in Sofia, specialising in art fabrics. Here she was awarded a scholarship for innovative artwork and obtained the professional qualification “Artist of Applied Arts”.Despite her passion for art, the urge to conserve nature – which has always been evident in her artwork – led her to embark on a degree in conservation at the University of Aberdeen in 2015.

While at university Aleksandrina soon discovered that she loved working in the field, spending her summers undertaking internships through the Erasmus + traineeship programme. In the summer of 2017, she joined the CETASMUS project of the CIMA Research Foundation in Italy, where she spent three months collecting data on marine mammals while sailing whale watching vessels in the Ligurian Sea. Here she learned about the challenges of whale conservation and the functioning of Marine Protected Areas.

In the summer of 2018 Aleksandrina joined a common chameleon conservation project, helping her to gain experience in both marine and terrestrial conservation. Interacting with passionate young people from all over the world, her volunteering work and internships have given her significant insight into young people’s perspectives on conservation and the benefits of multidisciplinary cooperation.

Aleksandrina first became captivated by the concept of rewilding during discussions at university about possible wolf reintroduction in Scotland. She has followed the development of rewilding as a conservation approach closely ever since. Being a part of Rewilding Europe gives her the unique opportunity to work for something she truly believes in.

For Rewilding Europe Aleksandrina acts as a representative of young Europeans, providing insight on how they perceive conservation and rewilding today. Her role with Rewilding Europe is primarily to reach out, inspire and connect young people with the initiative, and to find creative ways to drive the European rewilding agenda forwards. This allows her to combine her passion for conservation and rewilding with her creativity, and to use her insight into young people to work towards a wilder European future.

When she isn’t busy working on conservation projects or helping to spread the word about rewilding, Aleksandrina enjoys spending time outdoors hiking and canoeing, and painting her favourite animals and plants.

Jens-Christian Svenning

Member

Jens-Christian Svenning is Professor of Ecology at the Department of Biology, Aarhus University (since 2009), where he founded (in 2017) and currently directs the Center for Biodiversity Dynamics in a Changing World (BIOCHANGE). He has been an elected member of the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters since 2010, and has received a number of prestigious prizes and awards, such as the Queen Margrethe II’s Science Award (first recipient) and the EliteForsk Prize from the Danish Ministry of Higher Education and Science. He has published more than 400 scientific papers and been cited more than 25,000 times in scientific publications. He has also trained 50 early career postdoctoral researchers, more than 40 PhD thesis students and more than 70 master’s thesis students, from every continent except Antarctica.

Jens-Christian Svenning has a PhD in ecology from Aarhus University (1999), where he also carried out his undergraduate and graduate studies in biology. Born in the Danish region of western Jutland, Jens-Christian has been interested in nature and biodiversity and wanted to be a scientist as far back as he can remember. Inspired by his family’s maritime history and strong connections with Latin America, he has always taken a global perspective on his interest in nature and society. This is something which has strongly shaped his work as a scientist, in which he combines very local work on nature in and around the city of Aarhus, where he lives, and in Denmark, with global studies and long-term research efforts in Africa and Latin America.

With BIOCHANGE, Jens-Christian and his team carry out research aimed at understanding how biodiversity and ecosystems are changing in our human-dominated epoch and developing solutions for promoting a sustainable, biodiverse future. The team often carry out large-scale analyses of biodiversity patterns and dynamics across the globe, or across thousands of years, to assess responses to past or current climate change or the effects of human activities. As part of this effort, the team often uses Big Data approaches, developing and harnessing the power of large databases on biodiversity and the ever-improving data from satellites to assess ecological dynamics. The team combines its Big Data approach with fieldwork at key sites across the globe, from Denmark to South America, Africa, and Asia. While much of this work is focused on plants and animals, Jens-Christian and his team also have a keen interest in the role of people in natural areas and how the lives of people are affected by nature. This interest arises partly from the fact that people are central to current ecological dynamics – from human-induced climate change to local restoration initiatives – and partly from a curiosity about the human species and a strong commitment to sustainable, fair and democratic development for societies across the world.

Within his broad research interests, Jens-Christian has taken a special interest in rewilding for more than a decade. This focus is based on an understanding that the Earth’s rich biodiversity has developed and been maintained over time by natural processes – it therefore seems logical that restoring natural processes is key to maintaining future biodiversity. He also appreciates that we need to develop our understanding of rewilding further to maximise its beneficial impact on biodiversity, focusing on everything from the role of different natural factors and processes in determining biodiversity to questions about the practical implementation of rewilding. As a scientist, he is also highly curious to see what happens when we allow nature to play an unconstrained role in reshaping ecosystems.

As a dedicated scientist and Rewilding Europe Supervisory Board member, Jens-Christian is looking forward to providing advice on the scientific complexities of rewilding and to helping realise the potential of rewilding as means of addressing the biodiversity crisis.

Frans Schepers

Managing Director, Executive Board Member

Frans Schepers is Managing Director and one of the founders of Rewilding Europe. He graduated in forestry, land – and water management in 1985 after which he took various positions in nature conservation, starting in Dutch government, working on a large river restoration project (Border Meuse), reshaping 50 km of river landscape. From 2000-2014, he worked at the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) in The Netherlands, responsible for international programmes, with a focus on Southern Africa, Europe and Eurasia.

During his professional career, which now spans over 30 years, he specialised in developing conservation strategies, freshwater and species conservation, ecological networks, protected areas and rewilding approaches. His special interest is in rewilding landscapes, where nature can bounce back through ecological processes, wildlife comes back and where people can enjoy and benefit.

As the Managing Director of Rewilding Europe since 2011, he is leading a team of now 20 people based in eight different European countries. Currently, eight large rewilding initiatives are operational in seven countries who have the potential to become rewilding icons for Europe, where wild nature with abundant wildlife provides new socio- economic opportunities. Under his leadership, Rewilding Europe has initiated four new, innovative initiatives: Rewilding Europe Capital (Europe’s first conservation enterprise loan facility), European Wildlife Bank (a lending facility for large herbivores), European Safari Company (a business to support nature-based tourism) and the European Rewilding Network (with now 50 members in 25 different countries).

Frans Schepers is a keen birdwatcher and has travelled to numerous countries around the world, including bird expeditions to the Mediterranean, Middle East and West Africa. Having travelled in Africa a lot, he is still very connected, in particular to Zambia, a country he loves and where he is a Trustee of the Zambian Carnivore Programme.

Willem Nolens

Head of Finance & Operations

Willem (born 1973) grew up in a Dutch village near the dunes and the beach. He studied economics at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands, where master’s courses in development and environmental economics planted seeds that would bear more far more fruit than he ever expected.

After working at an international risk consultancy, he switched his focus to development finance. In 2000 he moved to Bosnia and later worked in Ghana and Mozambique for several years, building and managing banks providing credit to small entrepreneurs. Willem and his wife fell in love with Africa.

When they moved back to the Netherlands in 2005, Willem co-founded and managed an investment fund for microfinance, Catalyst Microfinance Investors. Hard as it was to find investable microfinance institutions, he then co-founded ASA International, a network of greenfield microfinance banks, following the successful model of ASA in Bangladesh.

From his time in Africa, Willem understood that the continent’s rural areas typically show slow economic progress, while urban areas tend to become over-populated and polluted. This was partly because these rural areas lacked access to electricity, with solar energy prohibitively expensive. Willem figured that clean solar energy could have a massive impact if offered in combination with a credit facility.

In 2011 he founded SolarNow, an Uganda and Kenya-based company that he would lead for nine years, selling solar systems with a 24-month payment facility. When Willem resigned in early 2020, the company boasted an annual revenue of $8 million, employing 530 staff operating from 55 locations across Uganda and Kenya.

Willem’s years in Africa have made him a huge lover of wild nature. Having returned to Europe in 2017, Willem wants to devote his time and energy to a cause he truly believes in. This is why he joined Rewilding Europe in May 2020, where he oversees finance and operations. Willem is married, living in an old farm in Millingen aan de Rijn with his wife, three children, dogs, chickens and bees.

Raquel Filgueiras

Head of Rewilding

Raquel Filgueiras was born in 1972 in a small coastal village in northern Portugal. Like many other Portuguese, the ocean and her curiosity lead her to a career that now spans three continents and numerous countries.

Having started on the plains of southern Portugal, she quickly switched her attention to Africa, moving there to help the IUCN develop a tourism plan for the Parque Nacional do Rio Cacheu in Guinea-Bissau. Forced to leave the country by civil war, she eventually joined The Nature Conservancy in the eastern Caribbean, where she led the Grenadines Parks in Peril programme, setting up a network of marine protected areas between Grenada and St. Vincent and the Grenadines. The call of Africa was still strong, however. After a decade away, she returned, this time to Mozambique to work with communities living around Gorongosa National Park, one of the first privately run protected areas in Africa.

Raquel believes strongly in the innovative power of the private sector as a force that can bring about positive change. This is why, in 2010, she joined the African Parks Network to manage Liuwa Plain National Park, a remote, seasonally flooded grassland plain in western Zambia where wilderness can be experienced first hand.

More recently, Raquel joined WWF in Zambia, where she led the Freshwater Programme. For the past five years, her team has worked to maintain the connectivity of the Zambezi basin, setting up water resource protection areas and protecting the natural flow of some of the region’s largest rivers.

Raquel is driven by a desire to create space for nature, and a strong belief that  humans benefit greatly when they connect with that nature. One of her favourite pastimes is to grab a backpack and disappear into nature, an activity she has been fortunate enough to enjoy in some of our planet’s wildest places.

Timon Rutten

Head of Enterprise

Based in the Netherlands, Timon Rutten (1977) joins Rewilding Europe as of January 2018 as the new Head of Enterprise. He has studied at the Technical University Eindhoven and Nyenrode Business University in the Netherlands, and at Cornell University Ithaca in New York.

From 2003 to 2008 he worked as an associate at strategy consulting firm McKinsey & Company, focusing on large transformation programmes, mergers and acquisitions and operational excellence for both financial service and industrial corporations.

In 2006 Timon took a sabbatical year, working as a consultant for the African Parks Network in the Majete National Park in Malawi, where he helped to set up commercial park management systems. From 2009 onwards he switched to become founder, owner and investor in a number of companies, such as one of the largest bike retail companies in the Netherlands. He has now become a serial entrepreneur, founding and investing in several small start-up companies.

With a pragmatic approach and “just do it” mentality, Timon’s extensive, hands-on, strategic experience in setting up and running companies make him an excellent choice to lead Rewilding Europe’s enterprise team. As part of the management team he will report to the managing director and work closely with the business & finance director of Rewilding Europe Capital (REC). He will head up all strategic planning, organisation and implementation of enterprise work within the initiative, both at central and local level, and also play a role in corporate fundraising, attracting investment, supporting ICT and helping to build the organisation.

Timon enjoys nature, active outdoor sports, foreign policy, travelling and spending time with his family, especially his wife Ellen and two little boys. He is also an advisor to a new conservation initiative called Alliance for Precious Biospheres.

Laurien Holtjer

Head of Communications

Laurien is an experienced communications professional within the field of nature conservation. In 2005, she graduated with an MSc in Tropical Nature Conservation from Wageningen University in the Netherlands. Following an ecological field study in South Africa, she decided to specialise in the field of communications, a move which would enable her to inspire audiences and connect people with wild nature. She ended her MSc with a biodiversity project in Kyrgyzstan, where she worked with local stakeholders to encourage their involvement in nature conservation.

After finishing her MSc studies, Laurien continued her education in the fields of journalism, online communications and marketing. After working as a journalist, she became team leader and communications manager at Sovon, the Dutch Centre for Field Ornithology. While working at Sovon she was responsible for leading and developing strategies and projects, as well as producing content. During this time Laurien also worked periodically as an overseas dive instructor, helping people to explore the beauty and diversity of our underwater world.

Inspiring and connecting people with nature has always motivated Laurien. Joining Rewilding Europe fulfils her personal desire to work towards wilder nature, and a wish to make more people aware of nature’s beauty and innate resilience.

Laurien is a committed, all-round professional with an “onwards and upwards” approach to her career and life. In her present role she is responsible for the development and implementation of Rewilding Europe’s communications and marketing strategies and operations, both at a central level and across our rewilding areas. In partnership with regional communications officers, she works to share the efforts and results from these areas and boost our communications impact and outreach.

Deli Saavedra

Rewilding Area Coordinator

Originally from Catalonia, Deli Saavedra (1968) became part of Rewilding Europe in 2012. He studied Biology and holds a PhD which focused in the Eurasian Otter. He has worked as a consultant in nature conservation during the last twenty-five years, coordinating the reintroduction of endangered species (black vulture, Eurasian otter) and the planning and management of protected areas. He has collaborated and researched on protected areas planning (Costa Rica, Hungary), private conservation (Venezuela, Australia) and endangered species (Poland, Morocco, Ethiopia), and has been consultant at the Territory and Landscape Foundation (Catalonia) and the Observatory for Biodiversity and Ecological Processes in Rural Areas (Spanish Government). He has been director of SolucioNat (ltd.), dedicated to bird control and management activities in natural areas.

He has written a book about the reintroduction of the Otter in Catalonia and another one about birds and mammals of northern Ethiopia. He is the president of Sol Solidari (foundation for environmental cooperation in Africa) and member of the Reintroductions Specialist Group of IUCN.

Rob Stoneman

Rewilding Area Coordinator

Rob started his conservation career reconstructing climate change over the last few thousand years from records contained within peat bogs. After completing his PhD – and horrified by the destruction of precious peatland systems – he worked for the Scottish Wildlife Trust, running a European LIFE project to develop a conservation strategy for Scotland’s lowland raised bog.

Staying with the Wildlife Trusts Partnership Rob then took up positions as Chief Executive of the Sheffield and Hampshire & Isle of Wight Wildlife Trusts, Director of Conservation for all the Wildlife Trusts, and latterly Chief Executive of the Yorkshire Wildlife Trust. 

Rob’s 26-year career with The Wildlife Trusts spanned all conservation disciplines – marine, river, upland, grassland, heathland, woodland and urban wildlife conservation. He has always maintained a deep interest in peatland conservation, travelling the globe to research and provide advice. In 2009 Rob set up the IUCN-UK Peatland Programme, which has spearheaded the restoration of Britain’s peatlands. 

Rob has travelled extensively and loves to watch birds, go walking and cycling in wild countryside, and meet different people. He holds a passionate belief that a wilder Europe would allow us to resolve some of our most pressing issues – from climate change to ecosystem collapse – and create a new prosperity for a rapidly changing continent. Rob started at Rewilding Europe on May 1, 2019 with huge enthusiasm to scale up rewilding in northern and central Europe, and working closely with Deli Saavedra in southern Europe. 

Mario Cipollone

Team leader Central Apennines

Mario Cipollone was born in the Italian city of Pescara on March 18, 1981. He has always been passionate about nature and volunteered with environmental organisations from an early age. In 2008, Mario graduated with a degree in International Political Science. In 2012, after becoming increasingly concerned about the decline of the Marsican brown bear in the Central Apennine region, he co-founded the NGO Salviamo l’Orso (Let’s Save the Bear) with the aim of conserving this critically endangered brown bear subspecies. His commitment to wildlife, the natural environment and conservation of Marsican bears has gained Mario and the organisations to which he belongs widespread recognition, media coverage and grants at both national and international level.

In 2018, Mario became the Rewilding Apennines team leader, where his main tasks include planning and managing actions for the rewilding of ecosystems and trophic chains. His environmental background and passion for wildlife perfectly reflect the philosophy and policies of Rewilding Europe. A grassroots conservationist, Mario is aware that rewilding goals can only be achieved by engaging local communities in the conservation process, raising awareness of the value of biodiversity and natural heritage, and developing nature-based economies.

Marina Drugă

Team leader Southern Carpathians

Having studied biology at West University of Timisoara in Romania, and with a PhD in ornithology, Marina has significant experience in conservation and national/European environmental policy and legislation.

She worked on conservation, policy and casework issues with BirdLife International for around eight years, playing a key role in the sustainable development of renewable energy in the Dobruja region of Romania, working together with authorities, stakeholders and scientists in this field. She also has extensive experience in management plan development for protected areas, including Natura 2000 sites.

Marina has a tremendous respect for natural and cultural values, both of her own country and on an international scale.

“Nature is my home,” she says. “I want to know everything there is to know about nature in a scientific way, especially birds and mammals like the European bison, and American and European mink. I love a good challenge, so I seem to have an addiction to difficult or lost causes when it comes to conservation. Species reintroductions are a good example!”

I have been working at WWF Romania as a project manager of the LIFE Bison project (“Urgent actions for the recovery of European Bison populations in Romania”) since November 2017. Since February 2018 I have also been working as a regional coordinator for the Southwestern Carpathians Priority Landscape Area.

Mykhailo Nesterenko

Team leader Danube Delta

Mykhailo Nesterenko was born in 1974 in Ukraine. He graduated from the General Biology Faculty in Odessa, Ukraine and has more than 15 years of experience in nature conservation, sustainable development and rural development projects with WWF and as a consultant for, SABMiller, GIZ.

Mykhailo started his career as a zoologist mostly working on bird conservation. He has participated in various expeditions in both Ukraine and abroad. His consultancy work focused on the development of regional strategies and plans for the Danube Delta region of Ukraine, Romania, and Trans-boundary Climate Change Adaptation Strategy for the Danube Delta region. He is most proud of his work on a climate change adaptation strategy for a village in the Danube Delta and shares Rewilding Europe’s philosophy of doing locally but thinking globally. In the most recent years, Mykhailo focused was on large herbivores reintroduction projects and natural grazing projects in Ukraine.

Over many years of working in Ukraine, he built strong links and relations with stakeholders and partners in the Danube Delta region and has in depth knowledge of national and local conservation in Ukraine. He will focus on building up rewilding projects for restoration of wetlands and wildlife in partnership with local communities and businesses. He has been Team Leader of the Danube Delta Ukrainian rewilding team since April 2017.

Pedro Prata

Team leader Western Iberia

Pedro Prata was born in 1982 and grew up in a family farm in the central mountains of Portugal. Since childhood, he has been wandering through the grassland plateaus, adventuring into the thick forests or simply sunbathing in the deep canyons of the rivers. It made him realise a complex web of relations that wild nature so fruitfully shows in its many different aspects. He is passionate for nature in all its extent and lover of outdoor sports. Pursuing this curiosity led him to an MSC in biology in the University of Lisbon, where he mostly researched the behaviour of plant and fungi interaction.

Starting an international career in 2005, he went to study evolution with an MSC on ecology and evolution in the Universiteit van Amsterdam which led his research to coral reef recovery after storm damage at Curaçao in the Caribbean. Until 2010, he lived and was involved in different projects in Brasil and the USA and finally came back to Europe.

Starting off with like-minded people to set up an ecosystem restoration company, also allowed him to develop skills and training in broader realms of conservation works. In the meantime, near his hometown was an organisation called ATN that represented the Rewilding initiative with an innovative project Faia Brava. Convinced that was a plausible strategy to deal with high levels of land abandonment that raged for decades the inland of the country, he led the organisation for 5 years, leading the innovation of rewilding within the conservation context in Portugal.

Since 2018, with the foundation of Rewilding Portugal, he is now taking responsibility to develop this project in the wider area, to cover the whole Coa river basin that stretches as a natural wildlife corridor that must be carefully tackled to bloom in diversity, taking the Rewilding Strategy as a model to achieve such goals.

Ulrich Stöcker

Team leader Oder Delta (Germany)

Since 2009 Ulrich Stocker is the head of „Nature conservation and biodiversity” department of the environmental NGO Deutsche Umwelthilfe (DUH) – Environmental Action Germany.

He studied law in Cologne, Saarbrücken and Lausanne, with a specialisation in environmental law. After working for the Federal Environmental Agency and the UN Environment Programme UNEP in Nairobi, and lecturing environmental law at the Technical University of Berlin, he has been working for 18 years for the Ministry of Environment Brandenburg (1991–2009), where he developed the nature protection legislation for Brandenburg and the law for the National Park Lower Oder Valley. Since then he has dealt with wilderness and rewilding issues, among others responsible for the state designation of the “wilderness” area in Jüterbog, Lieberose and Tangersdorf, as coordinator of the Regional Working Group on Nature Conservation for the National Heritage and now representative of DUH in the strategy group conservation areas of German environmental organizations.

With more than 25 years of experience in the field of nature conservation, he has a broad network and a major environmental policy expertise. Within DUH he is a member of the Project Accompanying Working Group of “Natural Capital Germany”, was the one to lead a project helping the Botswana Government to successfully apply for the Okavango Delta as the 1.000th World Heritage Area. He also took part in the last World Wilderness Congresses in Mérida in 2009 and 2013 in Salamanca.

Stoycho Stoychev

Team leader Rhodope Mountains

Stoycho Stoychev, Conservation Director of the Bulgarian Society for the Protection of Birds/Bird Life Bulgaria lives and works in the Rewiding Rhodopes area from the town of Haskovo. He is well known conservation leader with an excellent track record. His successful work in increasing the population of the imperial eagle in the adjacent Strandzha-Sakar Mountains brought him the Whitley Conservation Award for 2014.

Stoycho has in depth knowledge of national and international conservation, including policy and legislation, in particular from the work with BirdLife International, and has excellent contact with stakeholders on national, regional and local level in the Rhodope Mountains.

Peter Torkler

Team leader Oder Delta (Poland)

Peter Torkler was born in Poland in 1968 and left the country as a child. He graduated as a geographer in Berlin, with a focus on sustainability, rural development and ecology. His professional career has been closely linked with nature conservation on both the German and Polish sides of the Oder River for more than 20 years.

Peter first became engaged with the Polish NGO community in the mid 1990s, when preparing his master’s thesis on organic farming in western Poland.  Subsequent work for WWF Germany saw him participate in multiple projects to promote sustainable regional development and nature protection along the Oder River. This involved close cooperation with farmers, local government and NGOs.

Peter’s work assumed a more Europe-wide focus with the enlargement of the European Union in 2004. He became strongly engaged in Brussels, promoting EU subsidies to support sustainable agriculture and regional development. He achieved great success providing guidance on financing the Natura 2000 network and the integration of nature funding into the EU’s financial instruments. He also argued against harmful subsidies, especially in new member states.

Peter left WWF Germany to become managing director of the newly established Baltic Sea Conservation Foundation in 2015. He deployed the foundation’s resources to fund and support nature conservation projects across the entire Baltic Sea region, including the Oder Delta, until leaving to join Rewilding Europe in March 2020.

The Rewilding Oder Delta team will benefit greatly from Peter’s passion for working in the field and his desire to balance nature conservation work and the needs of local people. Understanding these needs will motivate him as he lobbies for political and financial frameworks that really support the development of rewilding-related nature-based economies in the delta.

Daniel Allen

Writer and Editor

Born in London, Daniel is an award-winning writer, editor and photographer, with an additional background in PR and communications. His work has featured in numerous publications, including National Geographic Traveller, Geographical, the Sunday Times, the Guardian, the Independent, Discovery Channel magazine, CNN, BBC and Esquire. Having travelled and lived in numerous locations around the world, he is passionate about global conservation and socio-economic issues, and has had numerous articles published on rewilding. Daniel joins the Rewilding Europe team in 2017 as a Writer and Editor.

Dana Bezdíčková

LIFE Project Officer

Dana, originally from Prague, Czech Republic, has lived in the Netherlands for more than 25 years. She started her career in the area of science policies, after completing her MSc degree in biology at Radboud University Nijmegen, with research specialisms in ethology, animal ecology and behavioural physiology. She did additional courses on general management, policy and consultancy, animal science, inventories of flora and fauna, nature guiding and communication. 

Previously, Dana worked at one of the largest Dutch animal welfare charities – AAP, focusing on wildlife rescue and rehabilitation, and reaching out at public policy level. There she fulfilled various positions: as a manager, policy and public affairs advisor and external representative. She contributed significantly to the professionalisation of the organisation. For AAP Dana also set up and managed a large EU youth volunteer programme, which introduced her to the opportunities of EU funding. 

Dana has a broad insight and experience in the green NGO–sector at an international level and is happy to have joined Rewilding Europe, in early 2016. She can employ her love and passion for nature, her skills and experience to support Rewilding Europe in different fields in an international context. As a member of Rewilding Europe’s Central Team, Dana is supporting the implementation and management of Rewilding Europe’s LIFE- and Interreg projects. 

Janine Caalders

Wildlife Economies Advisor

Janine Caalders is one of the experts involved in the “Wildlife Economy” Interreg Europe project on behalf of Rewilding Europe.

Janine has a background in regional development, tourism and sustainability, with a PhD from Wageningen University. She was the founder and co-director of consultancy bureau BUITEN (economy and environment) between 2000 and 2015, and has extensive experience of working in the EU on international academic, business and governmental projects.

She is currently director of the Utrechtse Heuvelrug National Park and co-director of TLC Leather. She also works as an expert for the Environmental Quality Team Sterke Lekdijk, and is a board member of a number of NGOs.

Julia Clark

European Wildlife Bank Coordinator

Julia Clark was born in 1972 in Spain. She spent her childhood on the country’s southeast coast, where most of her extracurricular activity involved rescuing abandoned animals (driving her parents to despair in the process). Following graduation from the Veterinary Sciences School at the University of Murcia, she obtained her postgraduate degree in Norway, and was then briefly based in Brazil and the USA.

She began her career in academic research, but soon veered towards the field of animal behaviour and welfare, which proved to be her real vocation. Her career has been quite varied, although the majority of it has been spent as a government vet in the UK. Julia is experienced in the regulatory side of official controls relating to animal health and welfare, and has spent a lot of time in the field with numerous animal species.

Julia’s passion for conservation really developed during her MSc in International Animal Welfare, Ethics and Law at the University of Edinburgh. An initial interest in the intersection between animal welfare and wildlife conservation somehow led to an interest in rewilding. She continued to work for the UK government in the field of wild and domestic animal diseases.

Mei Elderadži

Coordinator of the European Rewilding Network

Mei, originating from Croatia, is a nature lover and a passionate diver. She graduated from the Faculty of Economics and Business, University of Zagreb. After finishing her studies she pursued a consulting carrier working on communications and marketing initiatives for several companies in Croatia. Through the years she has been actively involved in many environmental projects in the southeast region, including the marine part of the Natura 2000 Network in Croatia and also LIFE funded projects, which increased her passion for nature conservation and efforts to make a difference in this field. In 2014 Mei joined the Velebit rewilding team as a Communication Officer and in mid-2015 she also joined the central team as a Communications Manager. From 2017 she as well focused on the further development of the European Rewilding Network (ERN). In 2019 due to the growth of the ERN her main focus shifted from communications towards the coordination of the network and empowering the initiatives and projects across the continent to come together and support each other.

Irene Fernandez Saez

Irene is the Reservations and Operations Assistant at the European Safari Company.

She moved to the Netherlands in 2018 and has a Bachelor’s in Tourism Management from the Universidad de Valladolid and a Master’s degree in Tourism and Cultural policy from Radboud University Nijmegen. She has specialized in nature-based tourism and sustainability and has written both her theses about ecotourism in Spain. Irene loves to see how more and more people begin to think critically about their way of travelling.

Irene has worked in quality management for NH Hotels and has done internships in writing touristic and environmental policy for the municipality of Nijmegen and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Her favourite adventures so far have been visiting 13 out of the 15 Spanish National Parks, paragliding in Turkey, hiking, and camping in Norway for a month and walking the St James Way in Northern Spain.

In her free time, she sings in a choir, runs, plays tennis, and learns Dutch.

Irene deals with website content, marketing, communications, and reservations within the European Safari Company.

Aukje van Gerven

Wildlife Tourism Manager

Growing up, Aukje enjoyed nature mostly from horseback, which instilled a love for wandering in wild spaces.

She holds degrees in Law and History, but when working in these fields ceased to inspire her, she discovered true adventure travel while cycling from Tanzania to the Netherlands. This once in a lifetime experience opened her eyes to the importance of reaching out to and supporting local communities. Her tourism dollars were helping families out of poverty or helping them build their own sustainable communities. The unspoilt beauty of the mountains in Ethiopia had a profound impact, and she observed the full extent of heavy mountain tourism in her own backyard: the European Alps.

When she finished her biking expedition, Aukje started working as the Director of non-profit organisation Respect the Mountains. In five years she grew the organisation beyond the Netherlands and brought the message and live events to the European Sustainable Mountain Tourism market. Aukje now works as the Operations Manager for The European Safari Company, where she can combine her love for travel and nature. She aims to help guests not only to enjoy a wonderful holiday but also to come closer to nature so that they can, in turn, use their tourism dollars to care for wild spaces.

Violeta Giurgi

Finance and Operations Manager

Violeta grew up in a small village somewhere between the beautiful green hills of Maramures, Romania. Having been surrounded by overwhelming nature is the origin of her love for authentic nature. She really experienced and saw how people can be part of this nature without disturbing it too much. Furthermore she realized that without nature mankind eventually would be lost and protecting this nature is one of the biggest and most important challenges we are facing today. Violeta works as a Financial Officer to keep a clear view on the available financial resources to guarantee maximum efficiency in using them for all projects Rewilding Europe is involved in.

Jelle Harms

GIS Data Manager

Growing up in Wageningen, The Netherlands, there was always plenty of nature and outdoor activities around. But it was only during his post school travels to Australia and New Zealand that Jelle became overwhelmed by both nature’s beauty as well as its problematic future and ecological disasters, which drove him to seek a professional future in this direction.

During his study of Spatial Ecology at the University of Amsterdam he discovered the power of Geographical Information Systems (GIS) in an early stage. The fascination for maps combined with a passion for herpetofauna brought him in contact with Natural Resource Management at ITC, Enschede. Here he explored the world of species distribution modelling using a combination of satellite imagery and ground data of the sand lizards on the Wadden islands and Erhard’s wall lizard at Crete, Greece. At the end of his study Jelle returned to Wageningen University for his Msc. thesis on grazing ecology of large herbivores in South Africa.

Shortly after volunteering for Rewilding Europe for 3 months where he did a short case study on a habitat model for brown bears in the Croatian Velebit Mountains, he joined the Central Team as the GIS Data Manager.

Wouter Helmer

Senior Advisor Rewilding

Wouter Helmer (1960) co-founder and director (until 2015) of ARK Nature, one of the key rewilding partners of Rewilding Europe, in which he implemented hundreds of rewilding initiatives since 1989 throughout the Netherlands and later on in other parts of Europe.

He is the co-writer of several change-making visions like ‘Living Rivers’ and ‘Growing with the Sea’. He is also the co-inventor of new concepts for nature conservation and management like natural grazing, cyclic rejuvenation of floodplains, temporary nature in fallow areas, an international herd fund, landscape auctions and nature compensation in advance. Setting up campaigns about climate adaptation in natural buffer zones and ‘Missing Lynx’ about missing connections in nature conservation.

He has a lot of experiences in bringing big visions into practice, as was the case in areas like the Border Meuse, the Gelderse Poort, the transboundary Kempen~Broek (B/NL), several coastal areas in the Netherlands and projects in Latvia (‘Letlands’) and Bulgaria (‘New Thracian Gold’). His involvement in European nature conservation goes back to a study on ecosystems in Thracia, which ended up in a proposal for the Council of Europe to protect a biogenetic reserve in the northern part of Greece.

Wouter Helmer is the winner of several prizes on nature conservation in the Netherlands and he is Honorary Lector at the Forestry and Nature Management Programme at Van Hall Larenstein University of Applied Sciences, part of Wageningen University in the Netherlands.

Wouter Helmer is one of the four founding members of Rewilding Europe, representing the organisation in Dam Removal Europe, responsible for rewilding aspects in Rewilding Europe Capital and manager of GRAZELIFE, a LIFE Preparatory Project on request of the European Commission to improve policies, legislation and subsidies on (cost)effective grazing systems regarding biodiversity, climate adaptation and other ecosystem services.

Kristjan Jung

Communications Manager

Coming from Estonia, one of the least populated countries in Europe, Kristjan has been amongst nature since he was a kid. Many of the species Rewilding Europe is trying to re-introduce in Southern Europe, are taken for granted in Estonia. A journalist by profession, Kristjan has spent most of his career trying to bring nature closer to people, either through print or electronic media. Before joining Rewilding Europe, he worked as a journalist for Estonian Public Broadcasting’s program “Osoon”, a weekly TV magazine on nature and conservation. Kristjan takes care of Rewilding Europe’s internal and external communication.

Jamie Lawrence

Forest and Offset Business Developer

A forester and senior sustainability advisor, Jamie has worked with a diverse portfolio of organisations – from FTSE100 companies to leading NGOs and startups – leveraging collaborative advantage to deliver forest landscape restoration strategies. He works with Rewilding Europe’s enterprise team, helping to structure support and loans for entrepreneurs in forest landscapes across Europe.

Starting his career running a small woodland contracting business with operations across the UK, Jamie went on to work as a lead forest auditor for the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), and a country programme representative, regional programme coordinator and finally forestry division manager for The Rainforest Alliance. He has also served as an elected board member of FSC International and as in-house counsel to the Kingfisher Group, where he helped the group businesses (B&Q, Castorama and Brico Depot) achieve significant progress towards their “Net Positive” and sustainability objectives.

Jamie has co-founded four SMEs, a social enterprise and a consultancy, and established several NGO field offices. He has helped to initiate and support standard development processes for best forestry practices in Spain, Portugal, Montenegro, Cameroon, Mexico and Honduras, and has additional field experience in Latin and Central America, Indonesia, Ghana, Kenya, Europe and China.

Fluent in Spanish, Jamie oversees a family-owned woodlot in Wales in his spare time, and also helps to run a small crowdfunding platform for reforestation projects in Spain. He holds a graduate degree (BSc) in an international forestry discipline from UK, Dutch and Spanish universities.

Jamie believes that forestry and rewilding disciplines can work well together in achieving more biodiverse and restored landscapes across Europe.

Annette Mertens

LIFE Project Coordinator

Annette Mertens (1968) is of German origin but grew up in Italy, where she graduated in Zoology at the University “La Sapienza” in Rome. Her passion for wolves and bears has then taken her to Romania, where she has worked in the Carpathian Large Carnivore Project. She started in 1995 with a year of radio-telemetry work on wolves, and then continued from 1998 to 2002, coordinating the bear research and management component of the project and focusing on the analysis and management of carnivore-livestock raising conflicts.

Back in Italy in 2002 she wrote her first LIFE Project in cooperation with her colleague Valeria Salvatori. The project was accepted for funding by the European Commission and she has successfully coordinated it until its end. After this Annette has written several other LIFE proposals, both on her own initiative and on request of other parties, and coordinated the projects upon acceptance. For four years she has also worked as an expert in the LIFE Nature and Biodiversity proposal selection process.

She is now working as an independent free-lance for different National Parks in Italy, public authorities and foundations, and is still writing projects and coordinating them when selected for funding.

Annette has started working with Rewilding Europe in March 2014, when she was contracted to assist in the production of three LIFE proposals, which have all been submitted in October 2014. Annette has become part of the Rewilding Europe team as Advisor Fundraising, focusing on public funding in particular EU related.

Helena Newell

Enterprise Manager

Currently based in London, Helena Newell is part of the Conservation Capital team working as the business and finance partners of the Rewilding Europe initiative. Conservation Capital focuses exclusively on linking private sector business and investment finance with global biodiversity conservation and in the last 5 years has raised and structured over 200 million Euros of private investment finance for conservation-based businesses across a diverse range of industry sectors. Helena is Enterprise Manager for Rewilding Europe and is tasked with identifying and supporting conservation enterprises, and investment management of Rewilding Europe Capital. Helena recently completed an MSc in Conservation Science at Imperial College London and undertook her thesis on natural capital accounting in Uganda. Previously, Helena worked at PwC for 2 years in strategy consulting and merger and acquisition advisory. In 2014 she graduated from Newnham College, Cambridge with a BA in Economics.

Floor Peters

Finance & Operations Officer

Floor Peters joined Rewilding Europe in June 2019 as a member of the Central Team. Providing much-needed support, her focus is project administration and finance.

Born in 1985, she grew up in the southern Dutch province of Limburg, which borders Belgium and Germany.  Here she developed a passion for nature, using much of her spare time to explore the National Park De Maasduinen.

Floor is a well-seasoned traveller. Specialising in SME business development at Wageningen University, she lived for a while in the Tanzanian city of Arusha. Continuing her education with an MSc in International Development, she also carried out research on rural households in Mozambique. Camping in tiny villages, here she quickly fell in love with the spectacular local nature and hospitable locals. She then went on to work for the Rainforest Alliance, travelling frequently to Latin America to support her regional colleagues in the fields of HR, finance, project administration and legal affairs.

A rewilding enthusiast, Floor still loves walking in nature, and regularly goes hiking and camping – her trips to Argentina, Tanzania, Canada and Spain have been a particular highlight. Living in a relatively flat country, she is especially keen on the sight of mountains and small mountain villages! Now that she is living in Nijmegen, Floor frequently visits the Ooijpolder Nature Reserve, where she enjoys the stunning lakeside views and spotting herds of large grazing animals.

João Salgueiro

Wildlife Economies Advisor

João Salgueiro has dedicated most of his career to development cooperation, humanitarian aid and conservation, from a grassroots level with various NGOs right through to strategic advisory roles with bilateral cooperation agencies.

Bridging human development and nature conservation has been a central theme to most of his life’s work.  Fascinated by large-scale landscapes, he has worked and travelled across Africa for the last 15 years, learning first-hand the importance of environmental and natural resource management to development and human wellbeing.

In terms of conservation, he began by cooperating with the African Parks Network, working on community development strategy at a new nature reserve in the Central African Republic. Since then he has supported other protected areas in the development of more human-inclusive conservation. Joao has also collaborated with the United Nations on elephant poaching and ivory trafficking field research projects in Africa.

After recently returning to Europe, Joao’s ambition is to contribute to sustainable development, grounded in a long-term vision where rewilded landscapes enhance business and nature-based economies.

Josiane Segar

Rewilding Research Fellow

Josiane currently works as a doctoral researcher based at Rewilding Europe’s head office in Nijmegen, funded by a Marie Curie Fellowship. Her PhD is focused on investigating the progress of rewilding across Rewilding Europe’s core sites and the potential for scaling-up rewilding across the European continent. The project is conducted using an interdisciplinary approach, integrating socio-ecological, political and economic components to understand rewilding success. She is co-supervised by Dr. Alexandros Karamanlidis at Rewilding Europe and Prof. Henrique Pereira at the BioCon group in iDiv (Germany), where she spends 3 months each year, teaching master’s students and receiving scientific training.

Josiane’s background is in ecological sciences from the University of Edinburgh where she gained her bachelors. Alongside her studies, she also worked for two summers as a biological field assistant on the American Prairie Reserve, Montana, USA. It was during this time, living in a tent amongst a herd of bison, that she decided to pursue a career in rewilding.

After spending some time in the private sector as an ecological consultant, Josiane moved to Mexico where she worked as a research assistant in the lab for the conservation of wild fauna at UNAM, understanding changing vegetation dynamics under different grazing regimes. She then completed her master’s at the University of Oxford in Biodiversity, Conservation and Management where she got involved in several rewilding-related projects and based her thesis around the potential for rewilding on National Nature Reserves in the UK.

Alongside her PhD, Josiane is also involved in policy work promoting the principles of rewilding as a method of natural restoration in the UK and across continental Europe.

Nelleke de Weerd

Communications Manager

Nelleke is a hands-on communication specialist with a background in ecology and a passion for photography, diving and travelling. She works on our internal and external communications and is responsible for our daily social media management.

Driven by her passion for nature, Nelleke studied Forest & Nature Conservation at Wageningen University in the Netherlands. Her subsequent career as an ecologist took her to consulting and engineering company Witteveen+Bos, where she worked on nature policy in large multidisciplinary spatial planning projects. These projects also required her to bring together and evaluate information from multiple sources, which then had to be communicated effectively to a variety of stakeholders and audiences.

With a view to developing and employing her creativity and communication skills further, Nelleke then decided to take a social media management training programme in Indonesia. Theory became practice as she took up a position as a social media manager and content marketer for a local dive resort, with a strong focus on conservation and eco-friendly tourism.

Nelleke has always been convinced that nature conservation must go hand-in-hand with clear communications and policy dialogue. She loves to discover what makes people tick and how ideas and stories can be used to pique interest and inspire others to act. At Rewilding Europe she combines her ideals and efforts for the conservation and restoration of our beautiful and vital natural areas with highly proficient management skills and a sharp and creative eye for texts and visuals.

Green at heart, Nelleke is committed to expanding Rewilding Europe’s outreach through innovative and impactful communications, inspiring minds, building support and enhancing rewilding outcomes across the continent.