We are thrilled to welcome our new Chair, Dr Phil Sterling, who officially starts at the beginning of December.
We look forward to working with Phil.
On taking up this new role Phil says:
As of this coming December I will be delighted to be appointed formally as the new Chair of the Dorset LNP. I have already started working with Maria and I look forward to helping to shape the future of our LNP beginning in the New Year.
For those who don’t know me and my background, I have lived and worked in the county as an ecologist for over three decades. I have a comprehensive knowledge of the wildlife of Dorset and a good understanding of the challenges and opportunities for its conservation. My work has and continues to include leadership of partnerships that further nature conservation activities in the county, as well as co-ordination of funding bids, organising and directing land management and habitat creation. I have developed lasting and trusted working relationships with many people and organisations in or close to the conservation sector in the county. I hope to put to good effect my experiences to further the work of the LNP.
I was the principal ecologist at Dorset County Council for over 20 years from the mid-1990s, and had a significant hand in establishing and leading the Dorset Heaths Partnership as it is now known. For DCC I led from within the conservation-based outcomes for the Weymouth Relief Road including the purchase of 30ha of land that connects the Dorset Wildlife Trust’s Lorton reserve and RSPB’s Lodmoor reserve and forms a core part of the publicly accessible Lorton Valley Nature Park. The road verges provide a spectacular show of wildflowers annually, up to half a million Pyramidal Orchids some years, and support half of Britain’s butterfly species, and all this nature was created from bare ground. The verges and the valley are now used nationally as a demonstration of the capacity of the landscape to recover nature at scale.
I am still working part-time as a freelance ecologist but increasingly I am able to commit more time as a volunteer to help lead conservation within the county. I was appointed as Chair of the Dorset National Landscape Partnership in 2022, a Trustee of the Dorset Wildlife Trust in 2024, and I remain a Trustee of the Dorset Environmental Records Centre.
I will do my best to further the mission of the Dorset LNP to work with all those interested in conserving and restoring nature in the county, and through this help address locally the existential crisis of climate change, and further work to reconnect people with the natural environment for all the benefits this brings. I look forward to working with you all.
If you have any queries, please email: info@dorsetlnp.org.uk