The Team
Paul Harrison
Paul is a nature business entrepreneur and long-time conservationist. He is also a founder of Wild Connect, a nascent initiative to connect people to nature and help businesses to develop their green credentials.
He has over 20 years’ work experience in Africa, Asia, South America and Europe in conservation strategy, field biodiversity and ecosystem conservation, conservation finance, project and programme management, business financing and management, staff management and mentoring, agribusiness management and social entrepreneurship.
He is a director of several companies working in the sphere of natural resources management and nature-based solutions. He is a former Global Advisor to the United Nations Development Programme, where he held dual roles of setting up and running the donor financed Global Wildlife Programme, in collaboration with counterparts from other UN entities and the World Bank (working to tackle the illegal wildlife trade, from supply through trafficking and through demand), and managing and securing finance for a portfolio of ecosystem and biodiversity conservation initiatives.
He is a member of the WWF UK Programme Committee—providing advice and scrutiny of WWF-UK’s activities, answering to the board. Paul is also a member of IUCN World Commission on Protected Areas and additionally a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society.
Martyn Murray
Martyn has advised governments, aid agencies and conservation organisations on the conservation of biodiversity, sustainable use of ecosystems and ecological restoration.
He is a seasoned biodiversity executive, leader and strategist in the project management cycle with extensive experience in Africa, Asia and Europe and in global perspectives.
His passion is helping people and organisations improve their own environment by creating new and more powerful ‘socio-ecological systems’. As an author, he is concerned with the fundamental problems underlying unsustainable use of the Earth’s living resources and the destruction of biodiversity. http://www.martynmurray.com/.
He’s worn many hats in his career – team leader, project manager, trouble-shooter, facilitator, author, editor, researcher, fieldworker and strategist – equally at home undertaking field surveys with biologists, developing information systems with software geeks or discussing project risks and costs with executives.
Specialities: natural resources, livelihoods, planning, species protection, ecosystem services, ecotourism, business enterprises, institutional strengthening, climate change.
William Todd-Jones
As a performer, puppet designer, movement consultant & director at the high end of film, television & theatre, Todd’s been working in the entertainment industry for nearly forty years. Roles include: Goblins in Jim Henson’s “Labyrinth”, some Jessica Rabbit in “Who Framed Roger Rabbit”, Batman’s cape, Grawp in “HARRY POTTER V”, lots of Muppets, Woola in “John Carter” and recently establishing the Creature Fx dept for the BBC/HBO TV series, “His Dark Materials”… acting as head of department and master puppeteer. This job involved creating a multitude of proxy Daemons & full-size Armoured Bear rigs. Many of the projects Todd has worked on have won Oscars, Emmys & Bafta’s.
Todd’s passion is the Natural World and helping people to positively engage with it. He is a longstanding patron of the wildlife charity, Save The Rhino International and has been involved with conservation projects throughout his life.
Whenever possible, he uses his art ‘in the service of the environment’ …from Arctic to Africa, polar bears to stag beetles. His goal… to draw attention to humankind’s impact on the planet and to have fun while doing so. In 1994, he walked across Kenya and climbed Kilimanjaro in a rhinoceros costume to raise awareness and monies for schools in Africa.
And this year, for COP26 in Glasgow, he’s creative lead on a major Wales/Namibia environmental collaboration, using VR and AR delivered via EV tricycles as the basis for a citizen science/citizen art project to draw attention to biodiversity loss.
Throughout his career he has embraced changes in the industry… the reality of climate change and the goal of achieving net zero require the industry to change radically.
Todd’s TEDx talk on Muppets & Mussels