Staff Team and Board

Staff Team

Andy Ross – Director

Andy set up New Caledonian Woodlands in 2006 and has been totally immersed in it ever since.  A lover of the environment in general and of woodlands in particular, he believes that our potential to deal with environmental problems such as climate change relates to our understanding, awareness and appreciation of the environment and of our position of dependency within it.  Originally coming from a Clinical Psychology background, he did a big career swerve in 2001 and has been in the woods (but not lost) ever since.  His wood burning stove is well inside his top ten list of favourite things, but doing sport is also up there – particularly surfing, skiing and figure skating.

Donald McPhillimy – Environmental Projects Officer

Donald has looked after trees, woods and forests in New Zealand, on an Argyll estate, for a forest management company in Perthshire and for dozens and dozens of community groups, farmers and estate owners in Fife, Lothians and the Borders. He’s been contracted by just about everybody whilst remaining staunchly self-employed (when he’s not working for New Caledonian Woodlands). He loves to get into the woods, coppicing, pruning, thinning, harvesting wood fuel, planting trees, watching the seasons go by, catching glimpses of wildlife. He helped set up Scotland’s first community woodland at Wooplaw in the Borders and was in at the start of Reforesting Scotland too. He’s still involved with both of these groups and several others. He lives and cuts his own firewood in the Borders. He has a wood stove.

Lucy Zawadzki – Good Wood Project Officer

Dawn Hickie – Administrator

Having studied architecture at Newcastle University then deciding it wasn’t the career for her, Dawn embarked on a year of adventure, gaining volunteering and life experience with a marine conservation expedition to Fiji; where she counted fish and learnt how to open a coconut with a machete, and some journalistic reporting for the National Trust in Northumberland. These prompted her decision to find work within the third sector and she is relishing the opportunity to learn as much as she can from her role within New Caledonian Woodlands and from her vastly knowledgeable colleagues. Her 2 cocker spaniels Boris and Oscar have become unofficial office mascots and they make sure she takes full advantage of their countryside setting and the walks to and from work. She aspires to own a wood burner of her own but for the time being makes do with practising on the office stove.

Liz Knowles – Planet Pledge Project Officer

Liz joined New Caledonian Woodlands in September 2010. After a two year stint working with schools in Leicester on Environmental Education she was very pleased to get the opportunity to move back to Scotland to live close by some mountains again in Crieff. Believing that Climate Change is the biggest challenge we face over the next generation, she is particularly interested in community responses and solutions to climate change and helping people to overcome personal barriers to carbon reduction. With a background in Outdoor Education she spends most of her free time summer and winter climbing, mountain biking and wandering around in the hills. Liz’s house and water are heated by wood and she is saving up for a solar panel for hot water in summer.

The Board

New Caledonian Woodlands started as an idea some years ago that has gradually developed into the organisation which now exists. In the year before New Caledonian Woodlands began to deliver projects, a board of directors began to form itself, and now the New Caledonian Woodlands board consists of Andy Ross, Emma Margrett, Helen Nyul and Chris Peach.

The board share a belief that a mixture of hands-on environmental conservation and environmental education represents a strong means of encouraging people to reduce their impact on the environment through comprehensive behaviour change. New Caledonian Woodlands for us represents a way that we can make a real difference to the world around us, and make a contribution which we hope will benefit both current and future generations.