Alan Watson Featherstone
Trees for Life – Scotland, UK
Alan Watson Featherstone is an inspirational public speaker, ecologist, nature photographer and writer based in the Findhorn Community in the northeast of Scotland. Featherstone has given lectures and workshops all over the world and spoken at various international conferences including the World Wilderness Congress, the Society for Conservation Biology annual conference and the Society for Ecological Restoration conference. He has written numerous articles for journals and magazines, and has appeared regularly on television and radio.
In 1986 he formed Trees for Life, with the aim of restoring the Caledonian Forest and its unique wildlife to the Scottish Highlands. Featherstone took on ownership of the 10,000 acre Dundreggan Estate in Glenmoriston as its flagship project for native woodland recovery.
The charity works in partnership with the Forestry Commission, the National Trust for Scotland and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB). As of April 2014, Trees for Life has planted over One Million native trees! Featherstone is also the trustee of several charities, including Wild things!, an environmental education charity that grew out of Trees for Life; the Findhorn Hinterland Trust, which promotes conservation and education on the wild lands surrounding the Findhorn Community; and Trees for Hope, which works to restore the degraded lands of the Fertile Crescent area. I am also a Patron of Moor Trees, which is working to restore native woodland on Dartmoor in the southwest of England.
The inspiration he obtained from this project has helped for other ecological restoration projects in the Scottish Borders, on Dartmoor in England and for the creation of the Yendegaia National Park in Tierra del Fuego, Chile. Featherstone also founded the Restoring the Earth project, to promote the restoration of the planet’s degraded ecosystems as the most important task for humanity in the 21st century.
In 2001 Featherstone received the Schumacher Award from the Schumacher Society, for “his inspirational and practical work on conserving and restoring degraded ecosystems.” In 2002 Featherstone established the Restoring the Earth project, “to promote the restoration of the planet’s degraded ecosystems as the most important task for humanity in the 21st century.”
“Rewilding is not a luxury we can’t afford. It’s an ecological necessity.”
Website: 1) https://treesforlife.org.uk
2) https://alanwatsonfeatherstone.com
Video 1: Restoring the Caledonian Forest
Video 2: Rewilding the World
Video 3: Caledonian Forest (TEDx)
