We welcome our new Project Ecologist, Dr. Bede West

We are delighted to welcome Dr. Bede West to the Gascoyne Estates team, who joins us as our Project Ecologist.

Ecology is the study of organisms within their environment and how these interact. An ecologist studies the relationship between living things and their habitats.

Bede will be working across both the Hatfield and Cranborne estates to produce a baseline report on the biodiversity present across the estates, to assist and contribute to a better understanding of our natural capital. This information will be used to assess the success of any future initiatives and environmental practises, making evidence based decisions for sustainability management.

‘Modelling the importance of land management and agri-environment schemes with a focus on grasslands and forests’ was the subject matter of Bede’s PhD, however, after studying for four years at the UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology in Lancaster and attaining his PhD in Agricultural Ecology, Bede’s career then took a somewhat unusual and unforeseen route.

“I was given the opportunity to work for the British Antarctic Survey (BAS), an organisation which I knew and admired for their reputation for looking after the natural world.” commented Bede. “I am an experienced and keen mountaineer so this was attractive to the BAS, plus I was never going to turn down an opportunity to work in the Antarctic – however it was an intense experience!”

Bede worked on the main land in summer and Rothera Research station in winter, describing the experience of working in that part of the world as extreme:

“The working conditions were severe at times, for example 24 hours of sunlight, extreme blizzards which lasted for days, digging fuel barrels out of the ice shelves so that the aeroplanes could take flight, and at times being hundreds of miles from the nearest human.”

After returning to the UK in December 2023, Bede was contacted with regard to the Project Ecologist position and the job description interested him due to the key aspects of the role – land management and ecology and how the two can be balanced in an applied way for more sustainable land management.

“I really enjoy how those two things interact with each other – the science versus the  practical application. After 4 years of research for my PhD, it feels good to now be applying what I’ve learned into practice.”

In his first few weeks at Gascoyne, Bede has started the task of surveying different aspects of the two estates including grasslands and agricultural margins, already finding some surprising results such as diverse habitats on land which is in a transitionary period, and >70 different species within one particular margin of land.

Bede has always had a love of the natural world, having followed in his forester father’s footsteps to study forest ecology at Bangor University, plus also playing his part in looking after the family’s land and forestry.