Callum Roberts, Professor of Marine Conservation at the University of Essex

Callum leads the Convex Seascape Survey, an international research programme to unlock the secrets of carbon storage on the world’s continental shelves. His team provided the scientific underpinning for the UN Convention on Biological Diversity nature protection target of 30% by 2030, adopted in 2022. He is author of The Unnatural History of the Sea (Island Press 2007), Ocean of life: how our seas are changing (Penguin 2013), and Reef Life: An Underwater Memoir (Profile Books 2019), and he was lead science advisor for the BBC series Blue Planet II.

Lucas Porz, scientist at Helmholtz-Zentrum Hereon, Germany

Lucas’ research explores how human activities reshape seafloor habitats, sediment fluxes, and the carbon cycle. He has authored several scientific publications on the ecological impacts of bottom trawling, with a particular focus on the North and Baltic Seas. Lucas is actively involved in multiple Expert Groups of the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES), providing science-based advice to policymakers on sustainable marine management. He holds a BSc and MSc in Geophysics from Karlsruhe Institute of Technology and a PhD in Earth System Sciences from the University of Hamburg.

Ruth Williams, Head of Marine at The Wildlife Trusts

Ruth is a marine biologist and conservationist who has worked within the Wildlife Trust movement for over 25 years and is currently Head of Marine Conservation at The Wildlife Trusts, the national organisation that working to bring wildlife back across the UK. In this role, Ruth advocates for effective national policy to enable nature’s recovery at sea, as well as supporting local Wildlife Trusts to develop and deliver marine programmes and initiatives. This includes lobbying for and providing evidence to support effective management of our Marine Protected Area Network, and minimising human impacts on wildlife and wider marine resources, including blue carbon. 

Craig Bennett - Chief Executive at The Wildlife Trusts

Craig has been described as “one of the country’s top environmental campaigners”, by The Guardian as “the very model of a modern eco-general” and, in 2021, was included in The Sunday Times Green Power List of the UK’s top 20 environmentalists.

Craig was formerly CEO of Friends of the Earth where he refocussed the organisation to empower communities to take action on the climate & ecological crises, resulting in a step change in the scale and impact of the movement, with over 200 new Friends of the Earth community groups set up during his tenure. He also led the organisation to numerous campaign victories including on bees, fracking and against the expansion of Heathrow Airport.

Earlier in his career, Craig was Deputy Director at The University of Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership (CISL), and Director of The Prince of Wales’s Corporate Leaders Group on Climate Change (from 2007 to 2010) which he transformed into one of the most progressive business voices on the international climate change agenda.

He is Honorary Professor of Sustainability and Innovation at Alliance Manchester Business School, an Associate Fellow of Homerton College (Cambridge), a Senior Associate of The Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership, and a Policy Fellow of The Centre for Science and Policy at The University of Cambridge. He is also a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.