Meet our charity Patrons and Ambassadors

Olly Smith – Patron

Olly Smith is a multi award-winning broadcaster, author and columnist. He is a regular drinks expert on BBC1’s Saturday Kitchen and a Food Hero for P&O Cruises with his collection of Glass House wine bars. Olly writes regularly for various publications and is the author of seven books. He also hosts his own drinks podcast ‘A Glass With’ featuring a dazzling array of celebrity guests.

Having kept bees himself, Olly now keeps his garden as bee-friendly as possible and is honoured to be a patron of the Bumblebee Conservation Trust. “While beekeeping, I made friends with a fair number of honeybees over the years. I’m now thrilled to be getting to know our bumblebees better and look forward to sharing my adventures with the Trust. I warmly invite you to join in”.

Kate Bradbury – Patron

Kate Bradbury is an award-winning author and journalist, specialising in wildlife gardening. She edits the wildlife pages of ‘Gardeners World Magazine’ and regularly writes articles for the ‘Daily and Sunday Telegraph’, ‘The Guardian’, ‘RHS magazine The Garden’ and ‘BBC Wildlife’ and ‘BBC Countryfile’ magazines.

Kate is passionate about organic, wildlife-friendly gardening and has released several fantastic books. Kate is delighted to be a patron of the Trust. In her own words ‘it’s a dream come true!’.

Iolo Williams – Patron

Iolo Williams is a Welsh naturalist, broadcaster, public speaker and writer who’s worked in conservation for over 30 years and is most widely known as a popular member of the Springwatch, Autumnwatch and Winterwatch presenting team.

As someone who is utterly dedicated to conservation, Iolo has used his knowledge and experience to address the Welsh Assembly and is patron of several Welsh conservation organisations.

Jasmine Qureshi – Patron

Jasmine (they/she), is a journalist (BBC Wildlife, Gaytimes, Metro), writer, marine biologist and queer ecologist.

As a trans, desi, non-binary, and Muslim woman, she finds that her need to intertwine her identity in her work is required for authenticity and creativity to thrive in the many sectors she is in. As such, she is a published and spoken word poet, a presenter, speaker, workshop facilitator and wildlife TV Researcher.

Alongside her ambassadorship at the Trust, Jasmine is also an ambassador for Green Jobs for Nature (working to increase access and diversity within the natural history sector), an advisor for RSPB England, and has worked as a researcher previously for the BBC Natural History Unit, The Mindfulness Initiative on Climate Youth Resilience, and is currently working with grassroots rewilding and campaigning organisation WildCard, as Communications Lead. They have a great (almost obsessive) love for insects, bugs and invertebrates, and can often be found with one or two about their person.

Jasmine is currently working on her first book.

Emiel Durbal – Ambassador

Emiel Durbal is London based designer, creative & environmentalist, who since a young age has embraced creativity and design with a passion for the natural world. Emiel already has an established client base both nationally and internationally.

Emiel has always been inspired by the natural world, spending hours foraging in the wilderness. Nature is the greatest designer, and always will be. The organic materials surrounding us include life-sustaining trees, plant life, rivers, streams and the open sky, all of which were perfectly designed to play an individual role in the eco-system. Emiel takes great pride and passion in conserving it and is proud to represent the Trust as a volunteer ambassador to help raise awareness and inspire his generation to take action for these amazing creatures. Emiel has a growing Instagram following and uses this as a platform to reach a wider audience and influence change through design.

Tree aka ‘Treecle’

Tree initially joined as an ambassador by bringing the wine company she works for and Olly Smith into the fold. Her interest in our precious bumblebees started with curiosity in a large, bumbling visitor to her balcony and she was captivated to discover that it was a Hairy Footed-Flower Bee (anthophora plumipes), which sounded quite magical.

Tree volunteers as admin support for a Facebook group for bumblebee enthusiasts and has dabbled in entry-level bumblebee blogs. Tree also volunteered on a London-based project for the Trust, and Life Members may well bump into her at our annual London events! In recent years, Tree has moved into online content creation and streams on Twitch as ‘Treecle’ – here she raises money for the Trust and shares her experiences and bumblebee facts with her viewers. She hopes to encourage more content creators to raise money and awareness for our precious bumblebees.

Rachel Platt – Ambassador

Rachel studied Garden Design at the Oxford College of Garden Design, graduating with distinction before setting up her own design practice. She also freelances for Manoj Malde and The Garden Design Company.

Rachel specialises in creating luxury designs tailored to individual requirements, for residential gardens of all shapes and sizes in and around Buckinghamshire, Berkshire, and Oxfordshire. In 2022, she won a silver-gilt medal at RHS Tatton Park, as well as Best Construction, Peoples Choice and runner-up Young Designer of the Year. She is a pre-registered member of the Society of Garden Design.

Adrian Warwick – Ambassador

Adrian Warwick is a creative and passionate song writer, lyricist, musician, singer, children’s story writer and poet. Adrian has achieved four consecutive number ones in The Classical I Tunes charts and chart successes in the UK I Tunes Country chart. Adrian co-wrote the official International War Animal Remembrance Day song ‘A Million Tears’ and was appointed Celebrity Ambassador for the War Horse Memorial in January 2022.

Adrian is also an experienced life coach and mentor with a large number of corporate contacts, specialising in executive and leadership coaching and often described as a bundle of energy with lots of enthusiasm. Much of Adrian’s social media activity champions the importance of nature and he often promotes the importance of bees. Hugely personable, ‘energetic’ and an easy conversationalist, he has shown great interest and enthusiasm to learn about the plight of the bumblebees and is keen to help raise awareness of the Trust.

Matt Orme – Ambassador

Matt works as head gardener at the Montagu Arms Hotel in Beaulieu, in the heart of the New Forest. His passion for gardening and love of bumblebees initially took off after transforming the garden of his first house into a wildlife haven, now bursting with colour from pollinator friendly plants.

Diagnosed with ADHD, Matt can find day to day life challenging and for many years has struggled with anxiety and depression. Completing the new garden was the lifeline that he needed. He decided that gardening was something he wanted to do for a living. Good fortune presented itself in the position of the head gardener role, where he now manages the 1.5 acre hotel grounds. Matt increasingly grows as many bumblebee friendly flowers as possible whilst finding new and creative ways to provide spaces for nature to enjoy the garden as much as the hotel guests do. Being completely self taught, Matt encourages everyone to try gardening, in the hope they will enjoy it as much as he does. His mental health is currently the best it has been for years and he finds much happiness in watching the bumblebees each day.