JNCC’s UK Country Liaison officers

General Overview:

JNCC has four country liaison officers to support enhanced engagement between JNCC, the national governments and country nature conservation bodies in each of Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales, and England. Their work is focused on building on the connections and collaborations between JNCC and each country whilst also finding new or enhanced opportunities where JNCC’s skills and expertise can support the countries in delivering their priorities. Current work areas include:

Facilitating and supporting biodiversity related work with national governments and the CNCBs, for example developing the UK NBSAP to outline how the UK plans to implement the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF).
Participation in development of new sustainable land use schemes.
Supporting JNCC’s collaborations in a variety of marine work areas where partnership working is often necessary for appropriate conservation, management and reporting across inshore/offshore areas of our seas.
Building JNCC’s relationship with the environmental governance bodies (Environmental Standards Scotland and the Office for Environmental Protection, and the Interim Environmental Protection Assessor for Wales).
Maintaining an overview of new and developing environmental legislation and policy across the four countries of the UK.
Facilitating the alignment of JNCC’s work programme with country priorities.

Amy Arnott – Science and Evidence Liaison Officer (Northern Ireland)

Amy is currently working as the Northern Ireland Liaison Officer for JNCC based in Belfast, developing and maintaining strong working relationships between JNCC, the Northern Ireland Environment Agency and the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (DAERA). Prior to commencing work at JNCC, Amy completed a PhD at Queen’s University Belfast on the effects of agri-environment schemes on invertebrate biodiversity. Amy has been assisting partnerships with DAERA in future land management decisions and policy making.

Samuel MacNab – Science and Evidence Liaison Officer (Scotland)

Sam is currently the Scotland Liaison Officer for JNCC based in Edinburgh, developing and maintaining strong working relationships between JNCC, the Scottish Government and Scotland’s nature agency NatureScot. Prior to joining JNCC, Sam worked on negative emissions technologies in the Scottish Government’s Industrial Decarbonisation team and on setting legally-binding targets for the Environment Act at Defra’s Environmental Strategy Unit. He previously studied BSc Ecology and Conservation and MSc Sustainable Development at St Andrews and Edinburgh University respectively. Sam will be working collaboratively with JNCC and the four UK country nature conservation bodies to co-ordinate the production of scientific advice and guidance and contribute to UK-level reporting for international agreements.

Silas Gairdner – Science and Evidence Liaison Officer (Wales)

Silas is currently the Liaison Officer for Wales, focusing on developing and maintaining strong working relationships between JNCC, Cyfoeth Naturiol Cymru (Natural Resources Wales) and Llywodraeth Cymru (Welsh Government). He joins on secondment from Defra, where he worked on natural flood management policy. Before this, he worked as trade negotiator in the Department for International Trade, on producer responsibility reform at Defra, and interned at the United Nations Environment Programme in Nairobi and UK Parliament. He studied policy science at Leiden University College.

Rachel Wade – Science and Evidence Liaison Officer (England)

The role will focus on developing and maintaining strong working relationships between JNCC, Defra and Natural England. Rachel is JNCC’s Liaison Officer for England on secondment from Natural England, where she was part of the Natural Capital Ecosystem Assessment (NCEA) Data Mobilisation team. This involved working across NCEA projects to assess data needs and work with external partners in collaboration on projects that improved data accessibility linked to policy needs. Rachel’s previous work has included a Daphne Jackson Fellowship on Butterfly Ecology at Oxford Brookes University followed by Associate Lecturer contributing to the MSc on Conservation Ecology, Commissioning Editor for Life Science Academic books and journals and a PhD and postdoctoral experience in Palaeontology.