Arlin Rickard
Chief Executive, The Rivers Trust

Email: arlin@theriverstrust.org

Profile
A versatile director and project leader with wide-ranging experience of agriculture, land use, ecology, fisheries & wildlife, the charitable sector and community relations. Arlin has spent many years working closely with community groups including, farmers, land managers and riparian owners and developing new project initiatives adopting the Ecosystem Approach. He is a media relations, training and communications specialist, with numerous personal appearances on prime-time national and local radio and television stations. In recent years Arlin has developed and worked on a number of European partnership projects covering a range of issues including climate change, river restoration, the EU Water Framework Directive 2000/60/EC, fisheries, agriculture and the development of the “third sector” through championing the community based Rivers Trust Movement. 

Experience with Rivers Trusts
He was the Director of Westcountry Rivers Trust and a director of its trading subsidiary, Westcountry Rivers Limited for 10 years from the Trust’s launch in 1994 until 2004 with overall responsibility for the Trust's activities. As well as being responsible for the development of Westcountry Rivers Trust, he was instrumental in establishing the Association of Rivers Trusts, initially as an unincorporated association of the regional rivers trusts in England and Wales and then in 2004 as a company limited by guarantee as the umbrella body of the Rivers Trust Movement.

The Association of Rivers Trusts changed its name to The Rivers Trust in August 2011.

Other Experience
2002 - Director of Association of Rivers Trusts
1994 - 2004 - Director, Westcountry Rivers Trust
1994 – 2004 - Company Director of Westcountry Rivers Limited (Tamar Consulting)
1984 -1994 - Regional Director, Media Relations and Wildlife Advisory roles - Countryside & Conservation Organisations
Arlin was an active commoner on Bodmin Moor in Cornwall for 17 years where he worked to develop new bio-diversity based grazing management regimes.

Specialist skills

• Proven leadership, fundraising and management skills
• Public relations and media expertise
• Ecosystem Approach - linking human & social, environment and the economy
• Sustainable river basin management
• Grassland ecology and agri-environment policy issues
• Broad knowledge and experience of countryside issues
• Negotiation and mediation

Academic Qualifications
1973 - 1976 National & Advanced National Certificate – Agriculture & Grassland Ecology

Professional Portfolio

• Member Defra Water Framework Directive National Stakeholders Group – current
• Member Defra Catchment Sensitive Farming National Stakeholders Group - current
• Member Salmon & Trout Association, Environment & Technical Committee - current 
• Former Member of the IUCN (The World Conservation Union) Commission on Ecosystem Management

Alistair Maltby - BSc (Hons) MSc CEnv FIFM
Director - North

E: alistair@theriverstrust.org

Profile
Alistair was formerly Director of the Eden Rivers Trust in Cumbria before transferring to The Rivers Trust in 2006. He is a biologist with particular experience in river restoration and is passionate about the protection of water quality and resources and the management of water in the UK . He is also experienced at putting together project funding applications with specific knowledge of the Single Regeneration Budget, Heritage Lottery Fund, Landfill Tax, Sustainability Funds, the England Rural Development Programme, Regional Development Agency funding and the EU Interreg programmes.

His principal role within the Trust is to:

• Support new and established Rivers Trusts in the North of England
• Develop project funding bids
• Develop the Association’s Technical Working Group
• Provide advice and support to the Director on technical matters

Alistair developed the Eden Rivers Trust from a one-man outfit carrying out simple habitat improvement works into a professional organisation delivering a wide range of research, community and river restoration projects. He is therefore ideally placed to help others avoid some of the pitfalls and to understand the technical tools needed to achieve cost effective and scientifically sound environmental improvements.

Previous experience
Alistair’s professional interest in fisheries management began with his MSc dissertation which was titled “The effect of catch and release on stress levels in brown trout, salmo trutta L.”. During this period he also worked in the aquaculture industry, farming trout for the table.

After graduating he worked for an international water company, Generale des Eaux, on a pilot project to develop environmental dossiers for different water industry operational sites. With a growing interest in river restoration, Alistair joined a very young Westcountry Rivers Trust in the early days of the Tamar 2000 project. This groundbreaking catchment-scale project aimed to deliver river restoration outcomes by identifying economic savings from environmental improvements with farmers.

Nearing the end of Tamar 2000, Alistair became a Fish Health Inspector for CEFAS. This warranted role gave Alistair a very important insight into statutory matters and considerable experience of fish disease.

In 2000 Alistair moved back into the charitable sector as a project manager for Thames21. This was a diverse and challenging role, delivering river and canal environment improvements worth over £1.2M in an urban setting and prided valuable preparation for the development of the Eden Rivers Trust.

Specialist skills

• Urban and community based river restoration projects
• Catchment and local scale environmental and fishery restoration projects
• Fish and shellfish health and disease
• Aquaculture and mariculture
• Project funding, monitoring and reporting
• Litter in water

Academic and Professional qualifications
2008 - Fellow of the Institute of Fisheries Management
2005 - Chartered Environmentalist for the new Society of the Environment
2001 - Registered member of the Institute of Fisheries Management
1998 - Licentiate member of the Institute of Fisheries Management
1997 - MSc Aquaculture, University of Stirling
1996 - BSc Physiology, University of Leeds

Alan Hawken - BSc (Hons), FCIS
Trust Secretary, The Rivers Trust

E: alan@theriverstrust.org
T: 01726 822 343

Profile
Alan is an experienced chartered secretary, with expertise across a range of organisations from a public listed company to many private companies limited by shares and by guarantee, a trade association and charities.  His academic background is in geography, with particular emphasis on geomorphology and fluvial processes.  He has a lifetime’s interest in salmon and sea trout angling in Cornwall, and a practical understanding of the issues facing the river catchments in the Westcountry.

Previous experience
He was a founder member, trustee and honorary secretary of Westcountry Rivers Trust (“Westcountry”) from its inception in 1994 until 1999.  He became executive secretary of Westcountry in 2003, before moving across to become Secretary of Association of Rivers Trusts in 2004.

Prior to 2002, Alan spent nearly 30 years working within the former English China Clays (“ECC”) Group.  In the earlier years he was involved in Information Science and Economic Forecasting. He then studied as a chartered secretary and transferred to the ECC Group Secretariat in 1984, becoming Company Secretary of ECC International Ltd, the principal operating subsidiary, in 1986.

With the re-location of ECC to Reading in 1991, Alan remained in Cornwall and took over responsibility for local legal and insurance matters, as well as helping out at various times as Secretary of the China Clay Association, Wheal Martyn China Clay Museum Ltd and Restormel Local Enterprise Trust.  Following the take-over of ECC in 1999 by Imerys, the French group, ECC’s Reading office was closed and all UK secretariat and legal matters were transferred back to Cornwall under his control.  With integration virtually complete, there was a timely opportunity to join up with Arlin Rickard at Westcountry; an opportunity that Alan seized.

Specialist skills

• Commercial and general employment law
• Company law
• Compliance issues
• Insurance and litigation matters
• Risk management
• Secretariat systems

Academic and professional qualifications
1991 - Elected Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Secretaries and Administrators (Associate 1984)
1970- 1973 - BSc (Hons) Geography, Bedford College, University of London