LEGACY GRAZING - Key Persons
Luke is an ecologist with over 20 years' experience of field survey, and providing nature conservation management, policy and planning advice. Before joining Essex County Council's Place Services, he worked in both the private and charitable sectors. He is an experienced field botanist and has been involved in habitat surveys covering some of southern England's most iconic grassland habitats such as the hay meadows of Dartmoor, chalk grasslands of the North Downs and grazing marshes in the Thames Estuary.
He is a chartered environmentalist and member of the Chartered Institute of Ecology and Environmental Management. He holds a Level 5 (Professional) Field Identification Skills Certificate awarded by the The Botanical Society of the British Isles (BSBI).
Luke is responsible for the implementation of Countryside Stewardship, Higher Level Stewardship and Basic Payment Scheme agreements across Essex County Council's 500 hectare Country Park and Woodland estate, and established Legacy Grazing in 2009.
Luke has published a grass identification guidebook with Essex Wildlife Trust and a grassland vegetation classification key for Kent County Council. In 2014 he published the Essex Biodiversity Validation Checklist and in 2016 produced Supplementary Planning Guidance for the Essex Minerals Local Plan that sets out guidelines for the creation and management of over 200 hectares of Lowland Meadow and other open habitats through the sympathetic restoration of new quarries.
Roger has always had an interest in wildlife and farming. Initially managing livestock farms in the UK and Nigeria, he made the move to full time conservation work when he joined Suffolk Wildlife Trust to design and manage the creation of the Trimley Marshes reserve on the River Orwell.
Since 1992 he has worked as a Wildlife consultant and contractor designing, creating, restoring and managing wildlife areas; with a particular interest in nature conservation grazing. Grazing has always been an important part of his work and since 2006 Roger has owned his own livestock with Red Poll cattle, Hebridean sheep and Water Buffalo all being put to use in heritage grazing projects from the Norfolk coast to London, and from Cambridgeshire fens to Suffolk estuaries.
Before joining Legacy Grazing, he managed cattle grazing in Epping Forest on behalf of the City of London helping to pioneer an invisible fence system.