HONORARY TRUSTEE

RICHARD MABEY is Britain’s foremost nature writer. His many books include The Cabaret of Plants, Flora Brittanica, The Unofficial Countryside and Nature Cure.

FOUNDERS

ANGELA KING started work as a fashion designer and buyer in New York before becoming the Friends of the Earth first Wildlife Campaigner for England. She was then actively campaigning with Friends of the Earth and jointly initiated and ran the Friends of the Earth Otter Project and then went on to be consultant to Earth Resources Research and Nature Conservancy Council until Common Ground was founded in 1983.

SUE CLIFFORD has been working in environmental planning and architecture for the past 40 years. She has served on many advisory bodies including for the Arts Council Visual Arts Panel, the Heritage Lottery Local Heritage Initiative, the Design Review Panel for CABE, the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment and the Regional Cultural Consortium for the South West. In 1994 gained the MBE for services to the environment.

ROGER DEAKIN (1943-2006) was an editor, filmmaker and writer, perhaps best-known for his acclaimed book Waterlog: a swimmer’s journey through Britain and Wildwood: a journey through trees. He joined Friends of the Earth in 1978. where he planned campaigns and edited various publications. He was also musical advisor to the Aldeburgh Foundation on folk music and jazz, and produced a series of concerts and broadcasts at Snape Maltings by Carole King, the Chieftains, Kate and Anna McGarrigle. He was a regular contributor to the Financial Times, The Independent, Guardian and BBC Wildlife, and wrote and lectured on environmental education for the Worldwide Fund for Nature and the Nuffield Foundation.

BOARD OF TRUSTEES

NEIL SINDEN is based at Ruskin Land, the Wyre Forest, working with the Wyre Community Land Trust to restore and promote the cultural landscape. He is a trustee of Civic Voice, the umbrella group for local civic societies, and was Director of Policy and Campaigns at the CPRE until September 2015, leading campaigns on planning, housing, and the rural environment. He worked at Common Ground in the 1980s on the ‘Trees, Woods and the Green Man’ programme and helped organise the first national Apple Day in 1990.

TIM DEE is a BBC radio producer and the author of The Running Sky and Four Fields, and co-editor with Simon Armitage of The Poetry of Birds.

GARETH EVANS is a writer, editor, presenter, film and event producer. He is also Film Curator at Whitechapel Gallery, London.

RUPERT NABARRO is an Economist interested in real estate, investment analysis, urban research and economic development. He was born in 1945 and studied at Oxford (MA, PPE) and University College London (M.Phil, Town Planning). He is an Honorary Fellow of the RICS, a Life Fellow of the Society of Property Researchers and was awarded an OBE in the New Years Honours List 2007.

ROBIN GROVE-WHITE was Director of the Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE) in the 1980s, and later a Forestry Commissioner and chair of Greenpeace UK. He is now Professor Emeritus of Environment and Society at Lancaster University, and lives in remote Anglesey. He has been a Trustee of Common Ground since its inception in 1983.

PAULA MARSHALL is a senior consultant at Global Philanthropic where she has worked with the Birmingham Royal Ballet, University of Birmingham, the British Library, Royal Marsden Hospital, University of Liverpool, Banff Art Centre (Canada) and University of Pretoria (South Africa). Previously she also headed the trusts and foundations program at the London School of Economics, and was Director of Development at the Wharton Centre for Performing Arts, Michigan State University.

DIRECTORS

ADRIAN COOPER is the Executive Director of Common Ground and the founder-publisher of Little Toller Books.

GRACIE BURNETT is the Artistic Director of Common Ground, and is also a textile designer and founding member of the Ethical Fashion Foundation.