Rob Yorke is an independent environmental commentator, compere and moderator with broad-church experience in providing creative input to build cross-sector trust to help navigate towards collaborative environmental solutions on the ground. He is also an unaffiliated broadcaster with two outdoor TV series, a book on fishing, 136 letters published in The Times and an inquisitive interviewer of Michael Gove, George Monbiot, Minette Batters, Ben Goldsmith, Tony Juniper, Prof Tim Benton as well as a practising rural chartered surveyor

Leading an innovative delivery team who do things differently to improve the environment for our communities. Using partnership approaches to significantly reduce our impact on the environment through catchment and nature-based solutions. Nick is an engineer with a background in complex and innovative programmes. He is a chartered engineer with the Institute of Engineering and Technology, has an Engineering Doctorate and was awarded an industrial fellowship from the Royal Commission of 1851 for his work.

Deputy chair of River Action, Jim Murray MBE is an actor who features in The Crown and Masters of the Air. Beyond the screen, Jim is a fierce advocate for Britain’s rivers and the endangered wild Atlantic salmon. A lifelong fly fisherman, Murray founded Activist Anglers in 2023 to empower and educate anglers to protect their local waterways.

He combines his passion for conservation with creativity. His 2024 exhibition Creatures of Light at the Royal Watercolour Society submerged canvases in ten key UK salmon rivers to reflect their habitats using natural pigments, raising awareness and funds for the Atlantic Salmon Trust, where he serves as an ambassador. Jim also hosts the acclaimed podcast The Last Salmon and is instrumental in Project White Hart, a pioneering salmon restoration effort for the Test and Itchen chalkstreams where he lives.

Recently awarded a BEM for her contribution to river cleanliness and local community, Professor Becky Malby is a Visiting Professor in health systems leadership and innovation at York University, London South Bank University and Huddersfield University. She was until recently a non-executive at West Yorkshire NHS Integrated Care Board. She is an honorary fellow of the Royal College of General Practice. She has made sustained and demonstrable impact through her work on the quality of health services with global reach. Becky is the Chair of the Ilkley Clean River Group, Founder of the Sewage Campaign Network, the Ilkley Pool and Lido Community Group, and the leader of the Ilkley Free School Meals provision. She secured the first river with Bathing Status and the Ilkley campaign has lead to circa £60m investment to clean up the river. She is a vociferous campaigner delivering government, regulator and the water industry’s responsibility to them. 

John trained as a river ecologist nearly 20 years ago and worked for the Environment Agency for 7 years in the Biodiversity team, inputting to flood risk management projects and developing partnerships to restore rivers with landowners and communities, before moving to Thames21 to develop and lead their work to restore rivers and catchments. This including developing River Restoration, Evidence, Catchment Partnerships and Rural solution teams which develop partnerships and deliver solutions. In the last year, he has started at The Rivers Trust on secondment from Thames21 as a Regional Development Manager, supporting the development of Rivers Trusts in the south and partnerships to restore rivers and catchments.

After completing degrees in marine biology and pollution, Shaun worked in fisheries management and was the Head of Fishery Studies at Sparsholt College. He now brings his scientific background and fisheries knowledge to his role as the Director of the Wild Trout Trust - a charity that specialises in river restoration, education, and engagement. The Trust works closely with partners across the UK and Ireland, improving rivers for wild brown trout and empowering communities to care for their local watercourses.

Shosha is a senior journalist at the award-winning environmental policy news outlet ENDS Report, focusing on water policy and chemical regulation post-brexit. Her investigative work from the past year includes a deep dive into banned chemicals uncovered in a Cotswolds stream and an exposé on the scale of PFAS 'forever chemical' contamination in England that also featured in the Times. Shosha is also a regular contributor to the ECO Chamber podcast. 

Deputy chair of River Action, Jim Murray MBE is an actor who features in The Crown and Masters of the Air. Beyond the screen, Jim is a fierce advocate for Britain’s rivers and the endangered wild Atlantic salmon. A lifelong fly fisherman, Murray founded Activist Anglers in 2023 to empower and educate anglers to protect their local waterways.

He combines his passion for conservation with creativity. His 2024 exhibition Creatures of Light at the Royal Watercolour Society submerged canvases in ten key UK salmon rivers to reflect their habitats using natural pigments, raising awareness and funds for the Atlantic Salmon Trust, where he serves as an ambassador. Jim also hosts the acclaimed podcast The Last Salmon and is instrumental in Project White Hart, a pioneering salmon restoration effort for the Test and Itchen chalkstreams where he lives.

Dr Robert Bradburne is the Chief Scientist, Director of the Chief Scientist’s Group and head of the Environment Agency’s Science Profession. Robert was previously the Deputy Chief Scientific Adviser for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra). He led an interdisciplinary team of around 50 scientists and other specialists supporting all aspects of science across the Defra Group. Robert holds a degree in plant sciences from Cambridge University and a PhD in crop genetics from the John Innes Centre. 

Alistair Boxall is Professor in Environmental Science in the Environment and Geography Department at the University of York and Director of the NERC-funded ECORISC Centre for Doctoral Training. Alistair’s research focuses on understanding emerging and future ecological and health risks posed by chemical pollution in the natural environment. He co-led the Global Pharmaceutical Monitoring Project which studied levels of pharmaceutical pollution in 104 countries around the World and is leading the NERC ECOMIX project which is exploring the impacts of chemical mixtures on Yorkshire's rivers.

A passionate lifelong flyfisherman, Andrew Kelton obtained degrees in law (Cambridge) and resource management science (University of British Columbia) before working as an environmental consultant and river campaigner in Scotland and the USA. He then ‘re-qualified’ in England as a lawyer before working for Richard Buxton Environmental Law and Fish Legal.

Recognising that many seemingly intractable environmental problems – brought home for an angler by the tragic decline of the Atlantic salmon over the past 40 years – are the result of complex societal problems involving science and politics (with a small ‘p’), he has often had to grapple with what might be called the political science holding back the solutions. Thus in Scotland he sought to make public the politically inconvenient evidence linking salmon farming to the west coast sea trout collapse; and more recently has used the law, in the Pickering judicial review, to bring to light an often ‘unenthusiastic’ official attitude towards the enforcement of national river restoration plans. He still believes that institutional integrity and accountability offer hope for the future of water and beyond.

Simon Pickstone is deputy editor at ENDS Europe, where he writes about environmental policy developments in Brussels and beyond.