LCAB Christmas lecture with Rachael Bice, Yorkshire Wildlife Trust
Merchant Taylors' Hall, Aldwark (Map)
Event details
Eighty years ago, Yorkshire Wildlife Trust’s founders made a courageous choice: they refused to accept that the loss of precious wildlife and wild places was inevitable. Today, we face a challenge even more profound, as all of our wildlife is under pressure and our ecosystems are at risk of collapse.
In this thought-provoking public lecture, Rachael Bice, Chief Executive of Yorkshire Wildlife Trust, looks back at the courage that shaped the Trust’s first 80 years and asks what equally brave choices are now needed to prepare Yorkshire for the next 80.
From restoring whole living systems and tackling climate change to environmental and social justice, rights for nature, ecocide and a new culture of coexistence, the lecture explores how our relationship with the natural world may need to change.
Can we move beyond simply protecting what remains, towards a Yorkshire where people, wildlife and wild places can flourish together?
A hopeful invitation to imagine - and help create - the inheritance we leave to 2106.
- 17:30 - 18:00: Audience arrival
- 18:00 - 19:00: Lecture
- 19:00 - 19:45: Mulled wine and mince pies
About the speaker
Rachael Bice
Rachael is Chief Executive of Yorkshire Wildlife Trust, where she has led the organisation for over six years in its work to restore nature, inspire action and build a stronger future for Yorkshire’s wild places. She provides strategic leadership, practical approaches to environmental delivery and deep commitment to the more-than-human world.
Before joining Yorkshire Wildlife Trust, Rachael spent 13 formative years working in waste and environmental services at Cornwall Council, grounding her leadership in public service, operational delivery and place-based environmental change. A North Yorkshire resident with a Cornish background, she brings both pragmatism and imagination to her work: a solution-focused systems thinker who is interested in how people, land, culture, ecology and economics can be brought into better relationship.
Rachael’s academic and personal interests span Land Economy, Equine Science, Anthrozoology, deep ecology, psychology and leadership. These influences shape her belief that nature recovery is not only a technical or policy challenge, but a cultural and relational one. She is passionate about creativity, wilderness, mystery and the living world beyond the human.
Outside work, Rachael is a wild swimmer, horsewoman and creative thinker, happiest when landscape, animals, water and ideas flow together.
Leverhulme Centre for Anthropocene Biodiversity
LCAB has a novel and optimistic approach to biodiversity change in the Anthropocene, acknowledging gains as well as losses and helping to reframe conservation narratives that enable positive responses to the opportunities available to us in the Anthropocene. Our research contributes to shaping conservation narratives, informing conservation practice and influencing public and policy approaches to the ‘biodiversity crisis’. Our perspective provides a much-needed refocusing and empowering framework for positive change in the Anthropocene.
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Venue details
Wheelchair accessible