The Board of Trustees

Lord Selborne - Chairman

is Chairman of Blackmoor Estate Limited, a farming and horticultural business in Hampshire. He has held many positions in the public and private sector. He is Chair of The Foundation for Science and Technology. Previous posts include Chair of the House of Lords Sub Committee D (Environment, Agriculture, Public Health and Consumer Protection), President of the Royal Geographical Society, Chair of the Joint Nature Conservation Committee and Chair of the Agricultural and Food Research Council. He was a Trustee of RBG, Kew, from 1993 to 1998 and is a Trustee of both the John Innes Foundation and the Lawes Agricultural Trust at Rothamsted. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society.

Mr Marcus Agius

has extensive City and commercial experience and joined Lazard in London in 1972 where he became Chairman of Lazard London in 2001 and Deputy Chairman of Lazard LLC in 2002.  Mr Agius became Chairman of BAA plc in 2002.  He resigned from both Lazard and BAA plc in 2006 and became Chairman of Barclays PLC on 1st January 2007. On 1st December 2006 he was appointed Senior Independent Director of the BBC. Mr Agius holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and is Chairman of the Foundation and Friends of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.

Ms Tanya Burman

formerly Head of Development and Marketing at the Natural History Museum and currently a full time mother and a local resident. She has also been Regional Director for the Royal Marsden Hospital Cancer Appeal and Fund Manager for Lombard Odier, a private Swiss bank. Educated at Cambridge University, she has an MA in Natural Sciences and specialised in plant biochemistry. Her interests include gardening, sailing and walking.

Mr Andrew Cahn

is Chief Executive of UK Trade & Investment . He was previously Director of Government and Industry Affairs at British Airways. Much of his career has been in the public service. He began in the former Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food and moved to the Cabinet Office, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the European Commission as Chef de Cabinet. His interests include mountains, gardens, the European Union and sport.

Mr Richard Deverell

is responsible for all the BBC's services for children. He was previously Head of BBC News Interactive - responsible for the BBC News websites, BBC Policy and Planning. Prior to joining the BBC Richard worked for several years in management consultancy for the LEK partnership. He read Natural Science at Magdalene College, Cambridge. He is married with two children and his interests include natural history, current affairs and triathlons.

Professor Jonathan Drori CBE

is Director of Changing Media Ltd, a London consulting group. He is also Visiting Professor at Bristol University, (specialising in misconceptions in science and in the uses of technology for learning), and adviser to public bodies on new media and audience strategies. Previously he was Director of Culture Online at the Department for Culture Media and Sport. At the BBC he was Head of Commissioning for BBC Online and before that, Head of Digital Media and Learning Channels. As an Executive Producer and Director, he was responsible for many television series in science, education and the arts. Interests include cultural and economic uses of plants and fungi.

Professor Charles Godfray FRS

is Hope Professor in the Zoology Department and a Fellow of Jesus College, Oxford University.  Until 2006 he was Director of the NERC Centre for Population Biology and Professor of Evolutionary Biology at Imperial College London. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society and an honorary research fellow of the Natural History Museum and Rothamsted Research. He has joint UK & New Zealand citizenship and his interests include gardening (specialising in New Zealand plants), natural history, opera and walking.

Professor Sandy Harrison

is Professor of Climate Dynamics in Geographical Sciences at the University of Bristol. She has a special interest in how the terrestrial biosphere has modulated regional climate changes in the past and the future. She is a member of the Terrestrial Observation Panel for Climate (TOPC) of the Global Climate Observing System (GCOS) and Global Terrestrial Observing System (GTOS), Vice-President of the INQUA Commission on Palaeoclimatology, on the Scientific Steering Committee for the Palaeoclimate Modelling Intercomparison Project (PMIP), and on the Scientific Steering Committee for the IGBP-GAIM initiative for an Earth System Atlas.

Mr Timothy Hornsby

is currently the Chair of the Horniman Museum, Chair of the Public Fundraising Regulatory Association, and Chair of the Harkness Fellows Association. He is a Commissioner (and previous Chair) of the National Lottery Commission, and an independent member of the Consumer Council for Water. He is a Trustee of the International Institute for Environment and Development and of the Charles Darwin Trust. He is a Governor and Chair of the Grants Committee of the Legacy Trust. In his previous career he occupied the Chief Executive posts at the National Lottery Charities Board (now the Big Lottery Fund), the Royal Borough of Kingston, and the Nature Conservancy Council, after a career in academic life and subsequently in the higher Civil service.

Mr Richard Lapthorne CBE

is Non-executive Chairman of Cable & Wireless plc, Morse plc and New Look Ltd. He is a Trustee of Calibre, a charity providing recorded books, and of Tommy's campaign.

Mr George Loudon

is Chairman and Director of a number of investment and other firms including Pall Mall Capital Ltd and Altius Associates Ltd; former Director of Midland Bank Plc and former Vice-Chairman of the Amsterdam Stock Exchange. Director of the Multiple Sclerosis International Federation. Board member of the Rijksakademie Beeldende Kunst (Amsterdam) and former Trustee of the Galapagos Conservation Trust. Educated at Balliol College Oxford and Johns Hopkins University in America.

Sir William Stewart FRS

is a former Chief Scientific Adviser to the Government and the first Head of the Office of Science of Technology. He is currently Chairman of the Health Protection Agency. A botanist by initial training, he was founding Professor of Biological Sciences at the University of Dundee, Secretary of the Agricultural and Food Research Council, member of the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution, President of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, President of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and a vice-President of the Royal Society. Educated at Dunoon Grammar School and Glasgow University, he holds numerous honorary degrees and fellowships. His interests include watching people and plants.