Andy Schofield

Andy has had a passion for birds since a very early age, getting his first bird book and binoculars at the age of 9, and has spent all his 35-year career since leaving school working for the RSPB (Royal Society for the Protection of Birds). Initially as part of the reserve network, managing sites for threatened wildlife across the entire UK from Dartford warblers and Nightjars in Dorset to Chough and Corncrakes on the whisky Island of Islay in the Inner Hebrides. 
More recently though Andy has had a much more roaming area of work, primarily in species research and community development and capacity building for fledgling conservation organisations as part of the RSPB’s International programme of work, travelling through much of East, West and Southern Africa, America, Canada, China, Russia, The Middle East and South- East Asia working on critically endangered species and their recovery such as Spoon Billed Sandpipers and Gola Forest Malimbe’s. 
The last twelve years have seen him take a leading role in the Terrestrial and Marine programme of the incredibly biodiverse UK Overseas Territories and has been pivotal in the designation of some of the largest marine protected areas on the planet particularly around Ascension Island, The Pitcairn Islands, St Helena Island and the remotest inhabited archipelago on earth of Tristan da Cunha. Andy was recently awarded The British Empire Medal of the Order of the British Empire by King Charles and the community of Tristan da Cunha for his outstanding contribution to the communities and the marine conservation work of the UKOT’s. 
Andy also works for the Tristan Da Cunha Government as their UK representative on environmental issues.