Chair - Action Oak

Geraint Richards is the Head Forester for the Duchy of Cornwall and to His Majesty The King. Graduating in 1992 with a degree in forestry from Bangor University he worked for four years for the Forestry Commission before taking up his current role. Geraint is involved with a wide range of tree, woodland and forestry organisations and initiatives in the UK and internationally. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Foresters and its current President and is also the Chair of Action Oak. Geraint was made a Member of the Royal Victorian Order (MVO) in 2017 and in 2019 was awarded the Royal Forestry Society’s Gold Medal for distinguished services to forestry.

Deputy Chair - Action Oak

Lisa Brooks (aka Smith) is Chief Operating Officer of Forest Services in the Forestry Commission.  She has over 25 years' experience in Defra the group, specialising in environmental policy, operational delivery, and building science capability. She is a founding member of Action Oak and has led national teams and complex programmes, developed pioneering strategies such as the Tree Health Resilience Strategy, and shaped cross-sector action to protect the nation’s trees and forests.  She is committed to the Action Oak mission of working together to safeguard the future of our oaks.

Director - Action Oak

Annabel joined the Action Oak team in June 2023 after living in Mumbai for two years. Previously Annabel was part of the Foundation and Friends of The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, where she lead their events strategy and delivery for all donor events.  She is passionate about native species, and answering the question of how we can protect them from the varied threats they face to ensure their legacy for future generations.

Research Coordinator - Action Oak

Melanie joined Action Oak as Research Coordinator in March 2026. She has always had a fascination for nature and loves being outdoors. Learning more about the natural world led to a career in research, education and project development, focused on biodiversity restoration, landscape ecology and palaeoecology. She has worked across the U.K. and on European forestry projects, and has experience working with academic, private and charitable organisations, most recently with UHI Inverness and the Atlantic Salmon Trust. She has over 20 years experience in charitable governance with environmental trusts in Scotland, working with people and nature to restore trees and biodiversity at a catchment scale. Walking with the dog in her local woods and oak trees is her favourite thing to do! ere

Chair - Research & Monitoring Sub Committee

Nicola is the UK Chief Plant Health Officer and is the Head of the National Plant Protection Organisation. She advises ministers, industry and others about the risks posed by plant pests and diseases, ensuring that measures are in place to manage those risks and minimise their impact, as well as leading the operational response in the event of a disease outbreak. Although plant health is a devolved matter; Nicola co-ordinates the UK response to European and International plant health matters and takes the lead on national plant health emergency response.

She is a former President of the British Society for Plant Pathology, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Biology, Honorary Professor at the University of Birmingham Institute of Forestry and a Trustee of The Yorkshire Arboretum and the Royal Horticultural Society. 

Chair - Knowledge into Action Sub Committee

After studying at The Royal Botanic Gardens Kew on the 3-year Diploma course, he was the Head of the Arboretum, Gardens and Horticultural Services, responsible for the management and curation of over 14,000 trees and curated and managed the hardy shrub collections in the collections until July 2021 when he retired after 43 years’ service for which he received an MBE and the RHS VMH.

He is an author of many books and papers on trees and lectures in the UK and overseas on the subject, making regular television and radio appearances including more recently “The Secret Life of Trees” on Channel 5.

He is Vice President of the Arboricultural Association, Patron of TDAG, sits on the RHS Council, chairs the Woody Plant Committee, is a trustee of Chelsea Physic Garden, chairing the Garden Advisory Committee, a trustee of the Tree Register of the British Isles and the International Dendrology Society, chairing Trees and Shrubs Online.