Meet the team: Edwina Dunn, Volunteer Legal Researcher

Welcome to our Meet the team series, where we introduce the people behind the Lifescape Project, giving you an insight into who we are, how we work, and why we’re passionate about Lifescape’s mission.

This post introduces Edwina Dunn, a volunteer legal researcher with the rewilding legal team.

What did you do before?

My day job is working as a lawyer in financial regulation, but my passion has always been for nature. A few years ago I started to learn about rewilding, and the more I learned about it, the more I wanted to be involved, and to use my legal skills to help make rewilding happen. I joined the UK Environmental Lawyers’ Association, which is how I came across Elsie and asked if I could use my legal skills as a volunteer on her team at Lifescape.

What’s your favourite thing about working at Lifescape?

As a lawyer passionate about rewilding with a love of ecology, my dream was to combine the two somehow. It seemed impossible, but that’s exactly what we get to do on Lifescape’s legal team. I love that I get to learn about ecology, about keystone species like large herbivores and their role in habitat creation, and that I can play a role in working to remove legal barriers to enable them to better fulfil their ecological function.

What do you like to do outside of work?

I’ve just finished the rewilding training at Embercombe and another course for lawyers wanting to make a difference, called (re)purpose law. As well as volunteering and learning more about rewilding, I love spending time with the family at our small garden plot outside Berlin, playing oldtime music with friends, birding, hiking and anything else that allows me to spend time outside!

If you could be any animal, which would you be and why?

I had difficulties answering this one without thinking about all the ways in which we humans make their wild lives difficult! But it would probably be some sort of bird, who doesn’t dream of being able to fly?

Tell us about your favourite encounter with nature

We’re really fortunate to have a garden plot near a rewilding project just outside Berlin. I dug a small wildlife pond in the garden last year and not long after I got the plants in, we sat down a few metres away and down flew a nightingale to have a bath in the pond. Those kind of encounters always fill me with so much excitement and joy.