Corner Conversations New Models For Nature Recovery

Charlie Burrell

A pioneer of rewilding, Charlie Burrell, is an English landowner, conservationist and founder of the Knepp Wildland, the first large-scale lowland rewilding project in England, which was created in the early 2000s when he stopped conventional farming on 3,500 acres (1,400 ha) of land surrounding the ancestral family home at Knepp Castle in West Sussex. He is Chair of Foundation Conservation Carpathia, and on the advisory board of The Arcadia Fund, as well as the oversight committee for the Endangered Landscapes and Seascapes Programme. He is chair of The White Stork Project, Knepp Wildland Foundation, and Nattergal Ltd. and Vice Chair of rePLANET and Trustee to the Argolic Environment Foundation. He is on the Supervisory Board of Rewilding Europe.

Ben Goldsmith 

Ben is a passionate environmentalist and the chief executive of London-listed, green-themed investment trust, Menhaden Resource Efficiency PLC. With Charlie Burrell, he co-founded Nattergal Ltd, a natural capital company focused on restoring ecosystems at scale. Ben founded and chairs Conservation Collective, a growing network of locally-focused environment foundations; and is a Trustee of the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation. Ben chairs the UK Conservative Environment Network and was a non-executive director of the U.K. Government's Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) from 2018 to 2022. Complementing his green investment and philanthropy, he launched Rewilding the World, a podcast on that subject, in 2021.

Kristen Weldon

Kristen joined Cibus Capital as a Partner in October 2023 and leads the Natural Capital strategy. Previously, Kristen was Global Head of Sustainable Investing for BlackRock Alternatives responsible for propagating the firm’s sustainable investing strategy across all divisions including Real Estate, Infrastructure, Hedge Funds, Private Equity and Credit. Kristen also led efforts to expand the dedicated sustainable product offering, including development of the Natural Climate Solutions Fund and a voluntary carbon market offering. From 2019-2020, Kristen was on the Executive Committee of Louis Dreyfus Company where she launched Louis Dreyfus Ventures and led the company’s venture and growth equity investment activities in ag-tech and food technology. She was also Head of Food Innovation. Before joining LDC, Kristen was a Senior Managing Director at Blackstone.

EA Festival is the producer of two biennial festivals, EA Festival, an ideas and literary festival, and EA Sustain, a festival about Environment, Culture and Entrepreneurship. Both festivals feature top thought leaders, authors and performers and EA Festival is the top festival of its kind in the East of England.

Please arrive via The Corner Bar entrance on the North/Riverside of the building.

The ticket includes a free drink upon arrival and we suggest arriving at 18:30

The one-hour talk will commence at 19:00 and will take place in the adjacent Starr Auditorium.

Small plates and drinks are availabe to purchase at the bar after the event. If you would like to reserve a table, please contact hello.corner@tate.org.uk

Find out more about our other events here.