A farmer’s guide to ash dieback

Eleanor Marks

Technical Officer at LEAF Linking Environment And Farming

Eleanor joined LEAF in March 2022 as part of the technical team to develop and conduct internal and external project activity and research, working closely with fellow technical team members, external project partners and farmers. Projects Eleanor currently works on are focussed on farm trees, net-zero and Integrated Pest Management and contribute to promoting sustainable solutions to challenges agriculture and food systems face now and in the future. She has a BSc in Geography and a range of experience in the fresh produce sector.

Berglind Karlsdóttir

Social Scientist, Society and environment research group (SERG) Forest Research

Berglind is a Social Scientist working in the Society and Environment Research Group at Forest Research. Recently she has focused on how to improve knowledge systems to support land manager decision-making around tree health, with a particular focus on farmers. More broadly, Berglind’s work covers topics such as tree health, land manager behaviours for resilience, and the wellbeing impacts of tree planting

Berglind conducts research on values, attitudes and behaviours of people who engage with and manage treescapes. She specifically examines management practices responding to tree pests and diseases – projects which feed directly into policy and support schemes as they’re being developed.

Berglind joined the Social and Economics Research Group in early 2019. She has a background in conservation and has worked on projects across the tropics. After seeing the multitude of difficulties these projects face, Berglind became increasingly interested in aspects of conservation efficacy, such as social dimensions, communication, decision-making, planning and evaluation. In 2017, Berglind completed her master’s thesis on barriers and enablers to amphibian captive breeding programmes in the tropics, focusing on management and human dimensions. This work led to a position with Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust. At Forest Research, Berglind applies her past experiences from conservation to problem-solving challenges to treescapes and the wider environment.