Marc van den Tweel

Chair

Marc van den Tweel is a Dutch executive with over two decades of experience in leadership roles at prominent international organisations. Born in 1964, he is married with two children and lives in the Netherlands.

Since 2021, Marc has been the CEO and Secretary-General of the Dutch Olympic Committee, the Dutch Paralympic Committee, and the National Federation of Sports Organizations (NOC*NSF). In addition, he is actively involved in both profit and non-profit sectors, holding positions on the boards of the National Museum of Antiquities of the Netherlands (Rijksmuseum van Oudheden) and FREE Nature.

Marc has more than twenty-five years of experience as a CEO, marketing executive, and board member at renowned international organisations. He has a strong background in engaging people and businesses for a good cause. For nine years he was the CEO of the National Trust the Netherlands (Natuurmonumenten), while he also served for four years as CEO of Ronald McDonald House Charities in the Netherlands. He worked for ten years at WWF NL as Chief Marketing Officer, and at WWF International on partnerships with governments and businesses on issues such as climate change.

Marc is known as an expert at the intersection of market and society and has been the driving force behind many high-profile collaborations with companies. He is the author of hundreds of articles and columns, and has written several books on sports, nature conservation, and civil society.

Marc has always been a passionate advocate for nature. In 2023, he joined the Supervisory Board of Rewilding Europe and is keen to help the initiative fulfil its mission and vision. With his proactive approach and unwavering dedication he will offer highly valuable guidance and advice.

Sabine Hoefnagel

Member

Sabine Hoefnagel is the Global Director of Services, Brand and Communications at ERM and a member of its global Executive Committee. She is based in London. ERM is a global sustainability consultancy company that works with the world’s leading organisations to solve their sustainability challenges. In her current role she leads on innovation and the continuous development of ERM’s service offerings, heading up ERM’s Sustainability, Brand and Communications functions.

Sabine is the Chair of the Trustees of the ERM Foundation in the UK – an employee-led philanthropic organisation working with non-profit organisations and social enterprises focused on low carbon development, conservation and biodiversity, water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) and environmental education. She is also responsible for ERM’s strategic relationships with other organisations, including the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, the Capitals Coalition and Business for Nature.

Sabine has 25 years’ professional experience in sustainability consulting across a broad range of sectors, including finance, oil and gas, mining, manufacturing, chemicals and agribusiness. Her specific technical experience is in sustainability strategy, due diligence, social performance management and human rights, and she has worked worldwide providing advice to both private and public sector clients at corporate and site level.

Before she joined ERM in 2000, Sabine worked for the United Nations Environment Programme as a legal specialist and has worked in close cooperation with many international institutions, including bilateral development agencies, the UNDP, the World Bank, IFC, FAO, the European Commission and the EBRD, as well as many NGOs, including Human Rights Watch, WWF and IUCN.

Sabine has an academic background in law, with a Master’s Degree in Comparative Jurisprudence from New York University, School of Law (with a specialisation in human rights and public international law) and a “Doctoral” Degree” (Master’s equivalent) from the University of Amsterdam Law Faculty (specialisation in Environmental and European Law).

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.

Charlie Burrell

Member

Charlie Burrell is the owner of Knepp Estate, a 3,500-acre rewilding project in lowland Britain.

Charlie studied Agriculture and Advanced Farm Management at Cirencester Royal Agricultural College before inheriting Knepp from his grandparents in 1983. Despite intensifying the estate’s arable and dairy business for seventeen years, farming on the heavy Sussex clay remained unprofitable. In the late 1990s, Charlie had a dramatic change of heart and embarked on rewilding as an alternative to farming the land.

Switching to ‘process-led’ conservation, using free-roaming herds of grazing animals, Knepp is now superabundant in life and a hotspot for nationally endangered species like turtle doves, nightingales and purple emperor butterflies.

Charlie is chair of Foundation Conservation Carpathia, RePlanet Wildlife, Nattergal, Knepp Wildland Foundation and  the White Stork Project.

He also sits on the board of the Arcadia Fund and the oversight committee for the Endangered Landscapes Programme.

In 2017, Knepp Estate received the Anders Wall award for special contribution to the rural environment within the European Union.The success of the open-ended, low-cost, landscape-scale rewilding project on degraded farmland at Knepp, where natural processes are allowed to perform, is now influencing policy-making and conservation across the UK and beyond.

Sylvie Goyet

Member

Sylvie Goyet is Deputy Co-ordinator/Head, Environmental Activities at the Office of the Coordinator of OSCE Economic and Environmental Activities (OCEEA), based in Vienna, Austria.

Sylvie has been working on environmental protection, climate change, and sustainable development for over 20 years, serving UN agencies, international NGOs, and private foundations in Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Pacific. Before joining the OSCE, she was Advisor to the CEO and Vice President of the Prince Albert II of Monaco Foundation. Prior to that, she notably served as Director, Climate Change and Environmental Sustainability Programme at the Pacific Community, based in New Caledonia, and Director General of Fondation Internationale du Banc d’Arguin, working in West Africa on coastal and marine protection. Her previous positions include that of Regional Coordinator of the UNOPS/UNDP/GEF MedWetCoast project and Programme Manager at WWF International, UNDP Black Sea, UNEP Caspian Sea, and UNDP Fiji.

Highly committed to environmental protection and conservation finance, Sylvie also serves on the boards of the Wild Touch Association, the Conservation Finance Alliance (CFA), BioGuine Foundation, BaCoMab Foundation, Tour du Valat, and Edinburgh Ocean Leaders.

Sylvie is a French and Swiss citizen, holds a Master’s degree in Environmental Management from the University of London, an MBA in Finance from the University of Texas at Austin, and a Master’s degree in International Business from the Lyon Business School.

Frans Schepers

Executive Director

Frans Schepers is a co-founder and Executive Director of Rewilding Europe. He started loving nature as a teenager, was always out in the field and decided to start a career in conservation. In 1985, he graduated in forestry, land – and water management after which he took various positions in nature conservation, starting in Dutch government. He became responsible for the design of one of the largest river restoration projects in the country, reshaping 50 km of the transboundary river Meuse. From 2000-2014 he worked at WWF Netherlands, responsible for international conservation programmes.

During his professional career, which now spans over 30 years, he specialised in rewilding large landscapes (in particular in Africa, Europe and Central Asia), where wild nature and wildlife can bounce back and where people can enjoy and benefit. Many of the experiences he build up from across the world have been used to design and develop Rewilding Europe to what it is today.

As the Managing Director of Rewilding Europe since 2011, he is leading a central team of now 25 people based in different European countries. Currently, eight large landscapes are becoming rewilding icons for Europe, where wild nature with abundant wildlife provide new socio- economic opportunities at landscape scale.

Under his leadership Rewilding Europe has become a frontrunner and pioneer initiative, taking both a demonstrating and a catalysing role on rewilding as a new conservation narrative for Europe. A number of innovative tools were developed to roll out and scale up rewilding, such as Rewilding Europe Capital (Europe’s first conservation enterprise loan facility), the European Safari Company (a business to support nature-based tourism) and the European Rewilding Network (a network of now 71 practical rewilding initiatives in 27 different countries).

Starting from scratch in 2011, Rewilding Europe has now become a well respected initiative, using an entrepreneurial approach delivering practical rewilding at scale, working with dedicated rewilding entities and parters across Europe.

Frans Schepers is a keen birdwatcher and has travelled numerous countries around the world and participated in various ornithological expeditions, in particular to the Mediterranean, Middle East and West Africa. Having travelled in Africa a lot, he is still very connected to Zambia, a country he loves and where he is a Trustee of the Zambian Carnivore Programme. In 2010, he wrote a book with travel stories about his work for WWF, called ‘Van Doejong tot Argali’ (in Dutch).

Johan Booij

Director of Finance and Operations

Johan Booij is the Director of Finance and Operations at Rewilding Europe. Johan is an experienced consultant and manager who combines a financial background with skills in strategy development, business process design, business system implementation, project management & change management, and knowledge of conservation and sustainability.

Johan holds a master’s degree in Economics from the University of Amsterdam. He started his professional career in 1994 in Malaysia as a junior consultant with Magnus Management Consultants. After his return to the Netherlands, he also worked as a senior consultant and manager in the  Dutch office. After serving in several international roles at Compaq and Hewlett Packard, Johan decided to pursue his career in conservation. He joined WWF Netherlands in 2008 as International Finance Manager and was promoted to head of Planning, Monitoring & Evaluation in 2009.

As of 2016, Johan has been working as a self-employed consultant and interim manager. Being interested in ecosystem restoration, he is excited about the opportunity to contribute to Rewilding Europe. Being involved in monitoring the return of the otter to his hometown Amsterdam, Johan believes that also cities can be a wilder place.

Laurien Holtjer

Director Engagement and Public Relations

Laurien Holtjer is the Director  Engagement and Public Relations at Rewilding Europe. Holding an MSc in Tropical Nature Conservation from Wageningen University, Laurien’s career evolved from field studies in South Africa and Kyrgyzstan, where she recognised the vital role of people in nature conservation. This realisation led her to focus on communications and stakeholder involvement, aiming to inspire audiences and connect people with wild nature.

Following her master’s degree, Laurien expanded her expertise in journalism, online communications, marketing, and reputation management. She worked as a consultant for several years and as a team leader and communications manager at Sovon, the Dutch Centre for Field Ornithology, where she led and developed communication and marketing strategies and plans.

As a statutory director at Rewilding Europe, Laurien is eager to spearhead Rewilding Europe’s efforts to advance the rewilding movement in Europe, and to motivate others to join. Her focus lies in aligning messaging with values, overseeing strategic communications, and fostering meaningful relationships. Laurien is dedicated to making more people aware of the beauty and innate resilience of the natural world.

Carolina Soto-Navarro

Head of Wilder Nature

Carolina Soto-Navarro is the Head of Wilder Nature at Rewilding Europe. She brings huge experience to the role, having designed, led, and raised funds for public and private conservation initiatives across the world for the last 15 years.

Carolina’s passion for wildlife and wild places started in her childhood, as she grew up surrounded by nature in rural southern Spain. Following a PhD on Iberian lynx in Spain, she co-founded a visual media production company with a focus on environmental education, and then worked as the Director of International Development for an ecotourism company focused on wildlife photography. Following a move to the UK in 2013, she spent more than six years working with a range of conservation organisations, academic institutions, major foundations, and government agencies on wildlife conservation, and also at the biodiversity-policy interface.

With a strong desire to deliver on-the-ground conservation impact, Carolina moved to Southeast Asia in 2019, where she joined the Wildlife Practice at WWF-Vietnam. She also worked as the IUCN Saola Working Group National Coordinator for Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. She played a leading role in defining and implementing conservation strategies focused on species such as elephants and primates in the Central Annamites, working with a wide variety of stakeholders.

This was followed by a spell in Costa Rica, leading conservation programmes focused on enhancing ecological connectivity on the biodiverse Osa Peninsula. She played a pivotal role in the launch of Rewilding Costa Rica, which is working towards the reintroduction of keystone species such as the white-lipped peccary and harpy eagle.

Carolina is a keen mammal watcher and has travelled to many countries around the world in search of the rarest species – from pumas in Patagonia to sand cats in the Sahara. With her love of the wild, she is keen to help the Rewilding Europe team breathe new life into European landscapes.

Johannes Schreuder

Head of Nature for People

Johannes is a nature enthusiast, who lives in France with his wife and three kids and explores the Jura and Alpes whenever he can. He studied Economics at the University of Amsterdam and Sciences Po in Paris.

He started his career at the strategy consulting firm The Boston Consulting Group in Amsterdam supporting transformation programs in the financial and public sector. Concerned about social inequalities, he transitioned to impact investing and peacebuilding. Working for Oicocredit, the United Nations and the PeaceNexus Foundation. Living in Africa and the United States.

Throughout his career he initiated various (innovative) financing mechanisms with an impact objective. He made equity investments in SMEs in emerging markets, designed blended finance projects for the UN, oversaw the investment portfolio of PeaceNexus and co-created a Peace themed listed equity engagement fund.

As Head of Nature for People, he now has the privilege to use his experience to develop new business opportunities resulting from wild nature.

Amy Duthie

Head of Upscaling

Amy is an experienced professional in the fields of conservation and international development.

In 2003, she graduated from the University of Edinburgh, Scotland, with an MA in Geography. Her interest in the environment took her to a volcano in Nicaragua, where she first learned about conservation, conducting biodiversity surveys for the management of the Cosigüina Nature Reserve.

Returning to the UK, Amy began her career in the international development sector, working over the coming nine years with Oxfam, Save the Children, and Care International. She focused on humanitarian response, undertaking assignments to the Democratic Republic of Congo, Niger, South Sudan, Kenya, and India. She then returned to the UK to lead a strategic initiative to better demonstrate the impact of aid on children’s lives.

Realising that climate change was making humanitarian crises increasingly frequent and severe, Amy switched focus and returned to the environment sector to be part of the movement to mitigate climate change. She joined Fauna & Flora International (FFI) in 2014 and worked there for nine years, initially supporting partner organisations with their development – including strategic and operational planning, fundraising, HR and governance – and then leading their fundraising from, and relationships with, government and multilateral donors.

Amy developed and delivered the FFI statutory fundraising strategy, growing the team from one person to seven, increasing income and proposal success rates, and developing strong, trusting relationships with public sector partners. She also became the FFI representative in the Endangered Landscapes Programme (ELP) working group, contributing to their strategy and facilitating workshops with ELP grantees, where she was first introduced to Rewilding Europe.

Having focused mainly on developing countries for 20 years, Amy decided to redirect her efforts closer to home, with the goal of helping those in Europe take the same actions and decisions that were being asked of poorer countries. The Head of Upscaling role was the perfect fit – encompassing rewilding, Europe, strategic partnerships and networks – and she joined the team in February 2023.

Fabien Quétier

Head of Landscapes

Fabien likes to think of himself as an “undisciplined” ecologist. Over the last two decades, he has been heavily involved with biodiversity and nature-based solutions in the context of natural resource and land-use management and policies, with significant experience in both academia and consulting.

Fabien has worked for leading French ecological engineering firm Biotope for the past 10 years. As one of the main architects of Biotope’s growing international profile, he has transformed the company into one of the world’s leading specialised biodiversity consultancies. Fabien himself has worked in over 40 countries. He has also been instrumental in positioning the firm as a key player in harnessing biodiversity offsetting mechanisms, in France and elsewhere, and has become a leading technical specialist on impact mitigation and ecological compensation. This has required dealing with the technical, economic, legal and institutional challenges of conserving and restoring biodiversity and ecosystem services, as well as complex conservation-development trade-offs.

Fabien has also developed a range of initiatives – with businesses and often in close partnership with conservation NGOs and public agencies – to support policy change and channel financial resources to conservation. He has been a member of the IUCN commission on ecosystem management for several years, and is now the co-chair of its thematic group on impact mitigation and ecological compensation.

Fabien may have spent a great deal of time outside Europe over the past few years, but he began his career in traditional European agricultural landscapes, working with farmers and other stakeholders to enhance vulnerable semi-natural ecosystems for nature and people. He will provide support for Rewilding Europe’s operational areas and liaise between the central team and those making rewilding happen on the ground.

Fabien is based in the French Alps – an inspirational environment for anyone involved in rewilding.

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.

Stephanie Kiel

Team Leader Affric Highlands

Stephanie was born in the German state of Bavaria in 1973, where she grew up in the foothills of the Alps. Her father took her and her younger brother foraging for mushrooms, climbing mountains in Tyrol, and on long-distance hikes from the age of seven. These experiences instilled a deep-rooted love for nature which has had a lasting influence on her life.

At the age of 16, Stephanie moved to Cologne with her family, where she finished school and studied biology at the University of Cologne. During her time at university she spent a summer as a warden on Mellum, a small island in the Wadden Sea National Park, which laid the foundations for her later career as an ornithologist. In 1997/98, she spent an academic year in the UK at Bangor University in Wales and visited Scotland for the first time. During her time at university Stephanie volunteered at Cologne Zoo and travelled to Scandinavia as a tour guide for teenagers and young adults. Following graduation she travelled to the Peruvian rainforest – here she learned Spanish, before spending a year in the Tambopata and Manu rainforests working as a naturalist guide.

After her return to Europe, Stephanie started working as a consultant subcontracted to Bayer CropScience. After just over a year, however, an opportunity arose to work in Scotland as an ornithologist. With little hesitation  she moved to Scotland in January 2005 and worked for several ecological consultancies. Her work focused on the planning, construction and operation of renewable energy projects in the Highlands, allowing her to develop an in-depth knowledge and understanding of upland ecology and land management, project management and budgeting.

In 2021, Stephanie was delighted to join Trees for Life as the Team Leader for the Affric Highlands rewilding area. Her experience of working in the Scottish Highlands with local landowners and her passion and enthusiasm for nature and ecology will be invaluable as she works to form new partnerships with communities, crofters, landowners and other stakeholders within the Affric Highland area.

Mykhailo Nesterenko

Team leader Danube Delta (Ukraine)

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.

Henrik Persson

Team Leader Swedish Lapland

Ioana-Catalina Petrencu

Team Leader Danube Delta (Romania)

Ioana-Catalina Petrencu, who heads up the Danube Delta rewilding team on the Romanian side, studied ecology at Alexandru Ioan Cuza University. She also has a master’s degree in biodiversity and ecosystem productivity from the same university. Since 2016, she has been involved in different bird monitoring programmes in Romania and the Republic of Moldova. This saw her work with Romania’s two most important societies for the protection of birds – the Romanian Ornithological Society/BirdLife International and Milvus Group – Bird and Nature Protection Association – on regional and national initiatives focused on Natura 2000 sites and bird species.

Complementing her experience in biology and ecology, Ioana-Catalina began working for the internationally recognised Ibis Tours wildlife tourism company in 2017 – first as an assistant manager, and then as deputy director. This gave her fantastic insight into what wildlife tourism means in the Danube Delta and Dobrogea, and allowed her to familiarise herself with local communities.

Living near the entrance to the Danube Delta Biosphere Reserve, Ioana-Catalina is constantly amazed by the unique natural and cultural heritage of the Danube Delta, with its captivating biodiversity, landscapes, and multi-ethnic communities. She has a keen interest in ecological restoration, biodiversity, and ecosystem productivity, and has kept a close eye on rewilding initiatives for many years.

Pedro Prata

Team Leader Greater Côa Valley

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.

Pablo Schapira

Team Leader Iberian Highland

Andreana Trifonova

Team Leader Rhodope Mountains

Andreana has been working in the Rhodope mountain for more than 15 years as being included in a variety of initiatives and projects related to biodiversity conservation and development and implementation of sustainable initiatives by local communities. She has a master degree in “Ecology” completed in Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski” and in “International projects management”. She is currently completing a master’s program in „Forest Management“ at the University of Forestry, Sofia.

Andreana gained part of her professional experience through participation in one of the most significant environmental projects in Bulgaria – implemented through the United Nations Development Program, directed to conservation of globally significant biodiversity in the Rhodope mountain and implementation of sustainable agricultural, forestry and tourism practices. As a manager of District Information Center – Smolyan, Andreana enriches her expertise in the field of European cohesion policy and its application at national and European level. For the last almost six years, Andreana has been working as an expert in International Projects, Ecology and Biodiversity at the South-Central State Forest Enterprise, Smolyan, Since 2017 she has been a qualified auditor in FSC forest certification. Andreana is also actively involved in environmental education initiatives, as a licensed forest pedagogue.

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.

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

Lead Editor and Writer

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 conservation and rewilding. Daniel joined the Rewilding Europe team in 2017 as a writer and editor.

Dana Bezdíčková

Grants & Operations Manager

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. 

Nina Breck

Communications Officer

A European at heart, Nina is fascinated by the complex relationships between nature and people.

Studying a BA in Tourism Management and Consultancy at the Breda University of Applied Sciences, she became increasingly aware of the industry’s negative impact on the environment and chose to focus on sustainability subjects. A natural progression then saw her obtain an MSc in Ecotourism at Edinburgh Napier University in Scotland, where she fell in love with the country’s vast landscapes and its unique people.

During her time in Scotland, Nina became fully immersed in studies focused on reconnecting people with the natural environment. These studies included some unique experiences in the Scottish wilderness.

In 2019, on the back of these experiences, Nina began working for a Norwegian-based nature conservation NGO Linking Tourism and Conservation (LT&C), where she was heavily involved in communications.

Moving back to Germany, her home country, Nina continued volunteering at LT&C. She also worked as a freelance sustainable tourism consultant focused on tourism management and nature conservation within European protected areas.

Nina initially heard about rewilding and Rewilding Europe during her first year of study. Since then she has been fascinated with the idea of restoring entire ecosystems at landscape scale, supporting the comeback of keystone wildlife species, and tackling the climate crisis through nature recovery. She now works to convey rewilding’s hopeful message to audiences in Europe and further afield by supporting Rewilding Europe’s internal and external communications at the central office in Nijmegen.

Sara Calçada

Learning Coordinator

As Rewilding Europe’s Learning Coordinator, Sara can leverage more than 15 years of experience in adult learning and conservation capacity building, gained in more than 20 countries across the world. She believes that the positive impact of conservation can be maximised by supporting those closest to nature, amplifying the voices of others, and fostering collaboration and learning – which is what her role at Rewilding Europe will allow her to do.

Following her graduation from the University of Lisbon with an MSc in Conservation Biology, Sara moved to the rainforest of Costa Rica for nearly two years. Here she studied the impact of human activity on populations of jaguar and their prey species, enjoying life inside a remote national park. While she has always been keen to adress the negative impact humans have had on the environment, it was at this point Sara realised she had a talent and passion for enabling and empowering others to achieve their goals – as a conservation-focused capacity builder, coordinator, and troubleshooter.

Sara’s skills were honed further during a 13-year stint with Fauna & Flora International. Here she built a career ensuring staff and partner organisations had access to the knowledge and skills necessary to perform their roles to the best of their ability, assessing competences and capacity needs, actively mentoring individuals, and developing a wide range of training programmes.

Sara is based in the city of Cambridge, in the UK. When she isn’t working, she can be found capturing scenes from her walks in nature in lino prints, planning her next camping trip, or engrossed in her latest knitting project.

Victor van Dooren

Enterprise Manager

Victor is based in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Prior to joining Rewilding Europe, he worked for five years as a strategy consultant at Strategy&, supporting clients in the public and private sector with strategies, transformation and financial optimisation.

In his role as Enterprise Manager Victor supports the landscape teams with their business plans and developing nature-based businesses. In addition to this support, he focuses organisation-wide on the themes tourism development and novel financing mechanisms such as biodiversity credits.

Victor holds a BSc from Amsterdam University College, an MSc in Biodiversity Conservation from Oxford University and an MBA from INSEAD. Victor is trained and certified as a Field Guide in Southern Africa and has spent considerable time on the African continent.

Raquel Filgueiras

Lead of impact monitoring and research

Raquel Filgueiras was born in 1972 in a small coastal village in northern Portugal. Like many other Portuguese, the ocean, and her curiosity led 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. Therefore, in 2010, she joined the African Parks Network to become Park Manager of Liuwa Plain National Park, a vast and remote, seasonally flooded grassland plain in western Zambia, on the border with Angola, where wilderness can be experienced first-hand.

After that, Raquel joined WWF in Zambia, where she led the Freshwater Programme for five years. Her team worked to maintain the connectivity of the Zambezi river basin, setting up water resource protection areas and protecting the natural flow of some of the region’s largest rivers.

In 2019 Raquel moved back to Europe where, as Head of Wilder Nature at Rewilding Europe, she is now supporting a network of Rewilding Landscapes across the continent. 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.

Andréa Gay

Enterprise Manager

Based in Spain, Andréa holds an MSc in Marketing Management from EDHEC Business School, and has over 10 years of experience helping corporations and small businesses expand their operations across diverse international markets. She previously volunteered with Rewilding Europe, contributing to the development of Landscape Business Plans for the Iberian Highlands and Danube Delta rewilding landscapes.

In her role as Enterprise Manager, Andréa will use her experience to support the integration of business and nature conservation. Her responsibilities will be diverse, including work to support the development of nature-based businesses and central initiatives related to corporate partnerships and CAP subsidies, and efforts to attract finance and impact investment for land rewilding. Constantly seeking connections with nature, Andréa enjoys exploring the Mediterranean landscapes around her home on horseback.

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.

Kyle Grotens

Upscaling Officer

Driven by a passion for everything wildlife related, Kyle studied Applied Biology with an ecology specialisation at the HAS in Den Bosch. A 6 month internship in South-Africa during this study activated his travel bug and a 4 month volunteering trip to the Costa Rican jungle followed directly after graduating.

Upon returning to Europe, he settled in Málaga and worked in the e-mobility sector for almost 4 years. However, the desire to work in conservation never left and in March 2023, he started as Upscaling Officer for Rewilding Europe.

Kyle loves nature and exploring the amazing fauna (and flora) the outdoors has to offer. This is where he likes to work on his amateur wildlife photography skills.

He has a great passion for reptiles and amphibians and is very excited to work towards a wilder Europe!

Jelle Harms

Geospatial and Monitoring 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 Geospatial and Monitoring Manager.

Kristjan Jung

Brand 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 overall branding.

Lucy Kilkens

Finance and Operations Officer

Hiking in nature and travelling in off-the-beaten-track areas: two of the things Lucy likes to do most, preferably with her binoculars around her neck and her field guide in her pocket. As a nature lover, she has travelled around the globe, but as a birdwatcher, she is even more in her element when in her own habitat: a birdwatcher from Nijmegen doesn’t have to go far to have a wide range of biotopes at her disposal.

Before Lucy joined Rewilding Europe’s Central Team, she studied Sinology, spent a lot of time in her beloved China, and worked as an East Asia expert and Sustainable Tourism Coordinator at a specialized tour operator for more than 8 years. Part of her job was to show how responsible travel contributes to the protection and development of local environments and people and to create new ways of doing so.

Making herself useful within a nature-oriented NGO felt like a logical next step in her career. It feels good to work in an international environment where everyone is so committed to contributing to a sustainable planet for all species who live on it to enjoy, and it is very satisfying to make sure things operate as smoothly as possible on various levels within the organization.

Simon Klapwijk

Lead IT & Operations

Simon has worked in IT for over 16 years in various roles and mostly in a corporate setting. He joined Rewilding Europe because he wanted to use his skill and expertise for an organisation with more direct and positive impact on the planet. His focus will be to help the growing organisation professionalize on matters of IT and Security with an additional responsibility of making sure everything in the office runs smoothly.

Simon is a fan of everything outdoor with specific interest in wildlife, hiking and mountain biking.

Kataryna Kurakina

Communications Officer

Born into a family of biologists in Ukraine, Kateryna was immersed in nature from an early age, igniting her passion for wildlife and conservation.

Pursuing her interest, she obtained a Master’s degree at the Biological Faculty of Odessa University.
During her final year at university, Kateryna began her career with WWF as a communications officer in the Danube Delta. Over the next 13 years, she advanced to national communications and fundraising roles, demonstrating her dedication to environmental advocacy.

In 2019, Kateryna joined the newly established Rewilding Ukraine organisation as a communicator. With the outbreak of the war in 2022, she relocated to the Netherlands and contributed her expertise to the central communications team at Rewilding Europe. Her responsibilities included education initiatives, updating communication channels, collaborating with partners on various projects, and more.

Kateryna’s extensive experience spans international and national PR and communications, brand development, fundraising, community engagement as well as campaigning. She is deeply passionate about nature and people, embracing the rewilding philosophy and striving to increase the amount of good in the world through everything she does.

Huub Limpens

Finance Officer

With an academic background in IT and ecology and wildlife, Huub Limpens grew up in the Veluwe area of the Netherlands. Having enjoyed a childhood surrounded by nature, he has a longstanding passion for wildlife, with summer camping trips in southern Europe fuelling his love for the outdoors. He is a keen hiker and cyclist, and loves spending time in wild landscapes. Following five years in Estonia, where he gained significant experience in the finance sector, Huub recently returned to the Netherlands and is looking forward to using his skills and knowledge to advance Rewilding Europe’s enterprise work.

Julia Mata

European Rewilding Network Coordinator

Julia is an Argentinian ecologist with a background in conservation and rewilding. She has a graduate degree in Natural Resources and a PhD in Biology from Aarhus University, Denmark.

She has for years worked in collaboration with the NGO Rewilding Argentina researching various aspects of their rewilding projects in the Iberá wetlands.

During her PhD Julia developed an innovative monitoring framework for rewilding, which uses remote sensing and wildlife tracking. She studied megafauna and their effects on the ecosystem, including reintroduced, native and exotic species. For these projects, she has done extensive fieldwork in rewilding sites.

Julia is interested in wildlife reintroductions, habitat restoration, conservation and nature communication. She currently works at Aarhus University as a PostDoc with Jens-Christian Svenning and as the European Rewilding Network (ERN) coordinator where she coordinates and empowers initiatives and projects across the continent to come together and support each other, as well as share knowledge on how to better implement rewilding in 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.

Sophie Monsarrat

Rewilding Manager

Sophie Monsarrat is an ecologist and rewilding scientist, with experience working in South African and European landscapes. She has extensive knowledge of ecosystem restoration, megafauna ecology and natural grazing’s potential to restore biodiverse and resilient ecosystems for the benefit of nature and people. After 6+ years in academia, she is now moving to apply her knowledge and skills to help progress the rewilding movement in Europe. She is an active member at Rewilding France since January 2022.

As Rewilding Manager, Sophie Monsarrat is mainly responsible for wildlife reintroduction and coexistence programmes to support wildlife comeback across Rewilding Europe’s landscapes.​ When not working in the office, she is happiest hiking and camping in the mountains with her partner and dog.

Floor Peters

Grants & HR Manager

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.

Theresa Stratmann

Geospatial Data and Monitoring Officer

Theresa joined Rewilding Europe in November 2022 as part of the Rewilding Team. Her job will focus on using and managing geospatial data, monitoring rewilding impacts, as well as providing training and support for the landscape staff on GIS and monitoring.

Theresa has always known that she wants to dedicate her career to helping nature. In school, she began volunteering at a wildlife rehabilitation centre and then at a zoo. During a magical week on a barrier island off the coast of Georgia (USA), she helped monitoring and protecting loggerhead sea turtles. This experience ignited her passion for field work and motivated her to pursue a degree in Ecology, in which she used every free moment to help with research and volunteer at various conservation organisations. She then worked with state wildlife agencies in the southeastern United States to more efficiently search for new populations of the endangered bog turtle for her Masters in Wildlife and Fisheries Biology.

Theresa is now in the last stages of her PhD in Biology where she is using an herbivore-vegetation model to understand the impact of long-distance movements and climate change on Mongolian gazelle population dynamics.

In her free time Theresa likes to read, camp, kayak, and explore nature. Having spent most of her life in the United States, she is especially excited to get to explore Europe and all it has to offer.

Giulia Testa

European Young Rewilders Coordinator

Despite being born in the heart of the Mediterranean in Italy, Giulia has been in wandering in the North since 2015. She moved to Canada at 18 years old, where she fell in love with the wild spaces and came to know about rewilding for the first time in a wolf reserve.

She had always been active in raising environmental awareness, from leading the scientific high-school newspaper to talking about sustainability to kids in Kazakhstan, but it was during her exchange in Arctic Norway that she decided to dedicate her life to advocating for a better planet.

She got a master’s degree in Environmental Law and Policy at the University of Eastern Finland, with a thesis on how to integrate rewilding in EU law to better conserve large carnivores. At the same time, she has represented the European youth in EU decision-making arenas on biodiversity. Currently, she coordinates the Nordic chapter of the youth constituency of the Convention on Biodiversity and regularly attends UN meetings and COPs as a youth delegate.

Working in rewilding and with youth together is a dream that came true. With the European Young Rewilders, she hopes that young people find what they need to become rewilding leaders and, together, make Europe a wilder place.

Daniel Veríssimo

Rewilding Finance Expert

Daniel was born in the sunny capital of Portugal, Lisboa. Strong critical spirit led him to study economics for 5 years in ISCTE, his innovative master dissertation titled (Rewilding with the Beaver in Portugal – An Economic analysis) explored the potential for the beaver to save costs in managing and restoring degraded freshwater habitats through the Iberia Peninsula.

He is a former member of the international network Rethinking Economics and worked in the Greater Côa Valley for Rewilding Portugal as the first local Enterprise Officer in Europe.

Next to his work, he is also a passionate writer of articles about the potential return of animals to Portugal, the state of Portuguese Protected Areas and the links between economic development and the restoration of nature.

As the Rewilding Finance Expert, he hopes to develop several business cases to preserve the natural world.

Tamar Vloedgraven

Finance Manager

Tamar joined Rewilding Europe in September 2022 as a member of the central team. Before joining, she worked as a financial auditor for eight years, during which Rewilding Europe was one of her clients.

During that period she also continued her audit education with a master and a postgraduate programme, with a further specialization in financial auditing and external reporting.

To become a chartered accountant (RA), she also finished a three-year practical experience training programme.

During her time as auditor of Rewilding Europe she was impressed by the organisation, which she is now happy to be part of. After enjoying her sabbatical in Spain and thinking about her future, she was easily convinced to join the Rewilding Europe Central Team. In her role, she focuses on planning & control and the European Wildlife Comeback Fund.

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.

Leen Willems

Lead HR & Organisational Development

Leen is Lead HR & Organisational Development at Rewilding Europe. His passion for nature and the development of people and organisations makes this the perfect position. He has experience in different roles in the field of HR, organizational development and L&D. In his last two roles, Leen worked as an HR manager in the field of sustainability and as a consultant in organizational development. He studied Organisational Psychology at the University of Amsterdam.

Living on the wooded Utrechtse Heuvelrug in the center of the Netherlands, Leen never misses an opportunity to explore nature on hiking boots, running shoes or on his bike. Besides enjoying the outdoors with his family, he is very dedicated as a sports coach in the typical Dutch sport of Korfball.

Timon Rutten

Managing Director

Based in the Netherlands, Timon Rutten (1977) joined Rewilding Europe in January 2018 as Head of Enterprise. As of November 2023, he is joining the Wilderway Team as Managing Director.

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.

Helena Newell

Finance and Operations Director

David Harleman

Investment Director

David is Investment Director of Wilderway. He is an experienced professional in the fields of sustainable finance and impact investing. He studied at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands, University of Florida in the United States, Griffith University in Australia, and at Solvay Business School in Belgium. His professional motivation is to contribute to positive social and ecological change through investment and entrepreneurship.

David was part of the corporate sustainability teams of two big financial institutions before moving into impact investing at Triodos Investment Management. At Triodos he initially focused on investing in the financial inclusion of micro-enterprises and SMEs in emerging markets, and later worked on the creation of new impact investment funds as Head of Product Development. He gained his first experience of investing in nature as a member of the Advisory Board for EcoEnterprises Fund, and with an investment in peatland restoration in Finland. In 2021, David moved to a.s.r. to launch the ASR Dutch Farmland Fund, and to lead the fund’s first equity raising with institutional investors in the Netherlands.

David enjoys sports, music, reading, food, and most of all being out in nature – particularly on camping trips with his wife Markje and two boys Luuk and Cas. His objective at Wilderway is to demonstrate that investment in nature recovery can recognise the real value of nature and ecosystem services, thereby unlocking private capital for rewilding projects and making Europe a wilder place for the benefit of all.

Nacho Martin

Head of Credit Development

For as long as Nacho can remember he has always been passionate about nature. His family is from a very small village in northern Spain surrounded by forests and mountains. Since he was a child, he has spent a lot of time outdoors and has always been lucky to have wildlife as part of his life.

This close contact with nature led Nacho to pursue a career in the environmental sector. He has a bachelor’s degree in forestry engineering and a master’s degree in environmental engineering. During his studies he had the opportunity to travel abroad and discover different ecosystems, such as those of Finland and Senegal.

For the past 7 years Nacho has undertaken different roles in the environmental sector. He has worked as a volunteer, a field technician and, briefly, as a researcher. He has participated in public projects such as LIFE and FTI, but mostly has worked as an environmental project manager in private enterprises, in collaboration with regional governments and local communities in Spain and Portugal. During this time Nacho has focused on the development of forest restoration projects linked to the voluntary carbon market, located mainly in Spain and Portugal, with some opportunity scoping and exchange of best practice in Africa, the US, and other European countries. For the last two years he has coordinated Land Life project implementation in Spain and Portugal as the Iberia Operations Lead.

In his new position at Wilderway, Nacho will focus on leveraging the potential of carbon and ecosystem services credits for funding nature recovery.

Preethi Sridharan

Credit Development Manager

Based in the Netherlands, Preethi recently joined Rewilding Europe as Carbon project developer as part of the Enterprise team and has now assumed her role in the Wilderway Team. In this role she will work primarily on linking Rewilding activities with Carbon and nature benefits and developing projects on the ground. The aim is to create a mechanism for nature restoration to pay for itself by showing the value of natural regeneration and ecosystem process in Rewilding.

Her experience in nature conservation started in 2012 in India, where she worked in HyTiCoS for the conservation and protection of predators and large mammals in wildlife corridors and nature reserves. Coming to the Netherlands in 2015, she pursued her masters degree in forest and nature conservation at Wageningen university. During the last few years, she worked as an ecological researcher at Van Der Goes en Groot, working mainly in peatlands and other nature areas in the Netherlands. In addition to this she was also a reforestation consultant at Menaqua Land Restoration, focusing on nature restoration in Middle Eastern countries primarily in Jordan, Lebanon and Palestine.

Laura Schefold

Credit Development Manager

Laura grew up and currently lives in Amsterdam, but has always felt the urge to venture out into nature at every opportunity. In her free time she often visits the beach and is passionate about any activities related to the sea, such as surfing and diving. Recently Laura has studied forest and nature conservation in Wageningen University in the Netherlands. As part of her master’s degree she carried out an internship at Rewilding Europe, looking at land access in Portugal and rewilding credits. She is now thrilled to be working for the organisation and particularly excited to explore ways that society can benefit from rewilding. In addition to her studies, she has worked as an ecologist on bat monitoring and volunteered with a number of marine and wetland conservation projects in Indonesia.

Within Wilderway Laura will focus on the scoping of land and assisting in the development of carbon projects. She began in April with a main focus on peatlands in Ireland, but her geographical focus will expand going forwards. Laura is really looking forward to meeting the local teams and seeing how carbon financing can open up opportunities for more rewilding.