Scelo C. Mbatha is an expert Wilderness Guide and Wilderness Facilitator, a book author of Black Lion Alive in the Wilderness, with over 24 years of experience in the field and a lifetime steeped in traditional knowledge, gained through the teachings of his Zulu elders and direct contact with the land as the son of the Wilderness Ranger. His ecological studies and training in deep ecology have further developed his passion for sharing the spiritual power of the natural world.

Alastair McIntosh (Scotland) has been described by BBC TV as “one of the world’s leading environmental campaigners.” A pioneer of modern land reform in Scotland, he helped bring the Isle of Eigg into community ownership. On the Isle of Harris he negotiated withdrawal of the world’s biggest cement company (Lafarge) from a devastating “superquarry” plan. He then served, unpaid to avoid conflicts of interest, on the company’s Sustainability Stakeholders Panel for 10 years to help further corporate social and environmental responsibility.

Helena Norberg-Hodge, linguist, author, filmmaker and pioneer of the new economy movement, is the founder and director of Local Futures. Based on decades of experience in indigenous cultures, in particular Ladakh and Bhutan, Helena has been promoting a big picture understanding of the foundations of human, as well as ecological wellbeing. Her work has gained her the Alternative Nobel prize, the Arthur Morgan Award and the Goi Peace Prize. Helena is author of the inspirational classic Ancient Futures, and Local is Our Future and producer of the award-winning documentary The Economics of Happiness, of Planet Local and Closer to Home.

Kalyanee Mam is an award-winning filmmaker exploring themes of war, displacement, environmental destruction, resilience, healing, and hope. Born in Cambodia during the Khmer Rouge era, she immigrated to the U.S. in 1981. Her documentary A River Changes Course won Sundance’s World Cinema Grand Jury Prize. She has worked on Academy award winning Inside Job and directed shorts like Lost World, Fight for Areng Valley, Between Earth & Sky, and Cries of Our Ancestors.

Francesca Price is Executive Director of the Real Farming Trust and an expert in campaigns, communications, and events. With over 30 years of experience in broadcast and print media, she has worked with NGOs such as the Gaia Foundation, Beyond GM, and the Sustainable Food Trust.

Emmanuel Vaughan-Lee is an Emmy- and Peabody-nominated filmmaker, Naqshbandi Sufi teacher, and founder and executive editor of Emergence Magazine. His films include Taste of the Land, The Last Ice Age, The Nightingale’s Song, Aloha Aina, Earthrise, and Elemental. He leads retreats world wide on Sufism and spiritual ecology and lives and teaches in Inverness, California.

Nessie is Director of the Global Diversity Foundation. She lives on an organic farm in Wales, cares for a herd of cheeky Welsh Black cows and is a Spiritual Ecologist with a focus on agroecology, food sovereignty, health, and land connection within both the UK and abroad. She has worked in Indonesia, India, Japan and within Europe on local and Indigenous communities’ rights to land for growing food, as well as the preservation of traditional artistic and cultural practices. She has a degree in Archaeology and the Study of Religions with Hindi from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS).

Faye Mingyi Lu is the Director of WildBound, where she designs regenerative leadership programs that reconnect people with nature,community, and self. Her work is rooted in ancestral wisdom, ecological consciousness, and cross-cultural collaboration, drawing from her experiences with Indigenous communities worldwide to foster regenerative futures across generations and geographies.

Justine is the Co-Founder of Kincentric Leadership, which strives for a future in which humans co-create with a living intelligent Earth.  Kincentric Leadership convenes a global community of practice stretching from Hawaii to Japan, and is publishing a suite of practical tools to enable leaders from all walks of life to embed kinship as a foundational principle within the strategy, operations and decision-making of their organisations and communities.

Pooja Bhale is a conservation biologist and founder of Protecterra Ecological Foundation, promoting ecological behavioural change. She resides at The Farm in Pune, living in a canvas tent alongside several animals. A visiting faculty member, sportswoman, and spiritual practitioner, she integrates conservation with education, shamanism, and meditation.

Gaiea holds a degree in Sanskrit from the University of Oxford where she also had a singing scholarship. Since university she has combined a love of Sanskrit with exploration of the voice. Gaiea visits India yearly for a month to study with voice and Sanskrit teachers. She performs, writes and records songs, leads regular Kirtan (chanting) and Sanskrit, Philosophy & Meditation workshops in London, and is also a teacher of the Alexander Technique.

Kohenet Rachel Rose Reid is a ritualist, singer, & storyteller, shining new light on lost stories. She is ordained by the Kohenet Hebrew Priestess Institute which was created to revive comprehensive knowledge of Jewish women & femme spiritual practice from antiquity to the present day. As co-founder of Yelala, she leads retreats, devotional song circles, and empowers Jewish and other people to create meaningful rituals for grief, love, transition, birth, & beyond. In addition to a variety of Jewish spaces, she has co-led combined Islamic and Jewish devotional chant in a variety of London venues, with Fahad Khalid, and led workshops for Medicine and Greenbelt Festivals, OneSpirit Interfaith Foundation, the Inayati Sufi Order and Rumi's Cave.

Manchán Magan is a writer & broadcaster, known for his work in exploring cultural identity and environmental consciousness. His dedication to fostering meaningful conversations has positioned him as a leading voice in contemporary Irish discourse. He has presented & produced countless television documentaries, and written books on his travels in Africa, India and South America and two novels. He writes occasionally for The Irish Times on culture & travel, presents the RTÉ podcast The Almanac of Ireland, and is author of the best-selling Thirty-Two Words for Field (Gill, 2000), and Listen to the Land Speak (Gill, 2022).

Farhana Mayer is currently a Research Affiliate at the Laudato Si’ Research Institute, Campion Hall, University of Oxford. She is a former lecturer in Qur’anic Exegesis and Sufism at the Institute of Ismaili Studies, and in Sufism at SOAS. Her publications include An Introduction to Qur’anic Ecology and Resonances with Laudato Si (Laudato Si’ Research Institute | Randeree Charitable Trust, 2023); Spiritual Gems: The Mystical Qur'an Commentary Ascribed to Ja`far al-Sadiq (Louisville, Fons Vitae, 2011); and Anthology of Qur’anic Commentaries: On the Nature of the Divine with F. Hamza and S. Rizvi (Oxford, Oxford University Press | Institute of Ismaili Studies, 2008). Farhana has a long-standing involvement in spirituality and interfaith dialogue.

Environmentalist, theologian, social activist, author, Dr Ruth Valerio is Director of Programmes and Advocacy at Embrace the Middle East. Ruth lives with a vision to inspire and equip people to a whole-life response to poverty and environmental breakdown, helping build a movement that brings about lasting change for the poorest and most vulnerable. Ruth pioneered the Eco Church movement with A Rocha UK and longs to see the culture of the Church change so that caring for God’s earth becomes an integral part of church life, rather than an optional extra. Ruth is Canon Theologian at Rochester Cathedral and a regular media contributor.

Since 2010, Solutions Not Sides has promoted empathy, critical thinking, and conflict resolution through education on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Committed to non-violence and equality, their UK-based programme fosters humanising encounters, diverse narratives, and dialogue, empowering participants to challenge prejudice and seek solutions.

Rosebell Abwonji is the founder of Jasiri Sustainable Futures (JSF), a movement based in Kenya that aims to revolutionize conservation by prioritizing initiatives led by local communities in the pursuit of environmental sustainability. Currently, Rosebell is pursuing an MPhil in Conservation Leadership at the University of Cambridge, bringing a perspective that is both globally informed and deeply rooted in community values regarding sustainability and environmental justice.

Dr Guy Hayward is the Director of the British Pilgrimage Trust, which he co-founded in 2014 to promote the practice of 'bring your own beliefs' pilgrimage in Britain. He has been leading guided pilgrimages since 2016 and co-authored the book Britain’s Pilgrim Places. Hayward has been interviewed about modern pilgrimage for TV, Netflix, Radio 4 and he writes for the national media. Hayward completed a PhD at Cambridge on how singing forms community, co-founded the Choral Evensong Trust with Rupert Sheldrake to promote Britain's sacred choral tradition, and is half of comedy singing double act Bounder & Cad.

Xiaoan Li, Ph.D. in Higher Education and Organizational Change at the University of California, Los Angeles, is a Senior Program Officer at the Fetzer Institute, a private foundation in Michigan with the mission to help build the spiritual foundation for a loving world. Since 2011, Xiaoan has been leading the work in education at the Institute that focuses on the question of how to promote the spiritual and moral development of young people in and through U.S. pre-K and K - 12 schools with the goal of better integrating the head and the heart, the mind, the body, and the soul. Xiaoan is currently leading the Institute's commitment to the natural world by exploring the sacred dimensions of our relationship with the environment and all other living beings.

Maritza Arizaga McCudden is an equity strategist, facilitator, and systems thinker at the intersection of environmental justice, community resilience, and transformative conservation. As a first-generation immigrant from Mexico living in rural Colorado, U.S., Maritza draws deeply from her cultural roots and personal journey, which are shaped by place, story, and a sense of belonging to community and nature. Her work is grounded in reciprocal relationships, centering on those most impacted by environmental inequity, and it emphasizes community-led conservation, equitable governance, and justice-driven sustainability.

Francesca Masoero is an Italian curator, cultural organiser, and researcher currently working with GDF as Global Environments Network (GEN) Programmes Curator. With a background in critical theory and political economy, Francesca has been working in Marrakech (Morocco) since 2015, first as curator of the cultural space LE 18 and, since 2019, also as programme coordinator for Dar Bellarj Foundation, where she co-curates and leads the Ch[a]rita festival and the Collective Workshops.