Dr Gabriel Hemery | |
|---|---|
 Dr Gabriel Hemery | |
| Born | 13 December 1968 |
| Occupation | Author, Photographer, Forest Scientist |
| Nationality | British |
| Education | University of Oxford |
| Genre | Natural History |
| Website | |
| www.gabrielhemery.com | |
Dr Gabriel Hemery (born 13 December 1968) is an English forest scientist (silvologist) and author. He co-founded the Sylva Foundation with Sir Martin Wood, a tree and forestry charity established in 2009.
He began his career at the Northmoor Trust, [1] now named the Earth Trust, in Oxfordshire. He later became Director of Development for the Botanical Society of Britain and Ireland, returning to forestry to establish the Forestry Horizons think-tank in 2006. He is currently Chief Executive of Sylva Foundation, which he co-founded with Sir Martin Wood in 2009. [2]
He has played an active role in the Institute of Chartered Foresters where he is a Fellow. [3]
During 2011, he co-founded the ginger group Our Forests with other prominent environmentalists, including Jonathon Porritt and Tony Juniper, to provide a voice for the people of England in the future of the country's public forests. [4]
In 2022, he was elected Chair of the Forestry and Climate Change Partnership [5] which exists to help Britain's trees, woods, and forests to be resilient and adapt to a changing climate.
With co-author Sarah Simblet he wrote a contemporary version of John Evelyn's Sylva – The New Sylva – published by Bloomsbury in April 2014. [6]
He has written several fiction works including with Unbound Publishing ( author page. Unbound Publishing. 2019. ISBN 978-1-78965-023-5 . Retrieved 7 January 2019. ) Green Gold: The Epic True Story of Victorian Plant Hunter John Jeffrey; a biographical novel describing the true story of an expedition to North America by Victorian botanist John Jeffrey between 1850 and 1854. He has also written two short story collections and a poetry anthology. [7]
He completed work on a series of three guidebooks to British forests published by Bloomsbury Wildlife, the first of which was "The Forest Guide: Scotland" published April 2023. [8] , with the Wales guide published in 2025 and the England guide coming 2026 [9] .
His next book "RSPB Trees of the British Isles" will be published by Bloomsbury Wildlife, in association with Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. [10]
He designed and established a new woodland and centre for hardwood forestry research; Paradise Wood. [11] He was a founding member of the British and Irish Hardwoods Improvement Programme establishing a number of forestry field trials across the UK and Ireland (e.g. [12] ). He gained a DPhil degree at the Department of Plant Sciences at the University of Oxford on the genetic improvement of walnut. [13] His research took him to the walnut fruit forests of Kyrgyzstan where he collected thousands of Juglans regia seeds for field trials back in the UK. [14] He then researched and published numerous articles pertaining to the silviculture (e.g. [15] [16] ) and genetic [17] improvement of walnut. He initiated an agroforestry research project in the mid-1990s, combining free-range broiler chicken with newly established woodland. [18] [19]