Dr Tony Juniper CBE is a prominent environmental figure active in the defence of Nature for nearly 40 years. He has led major organisations, run global campaigns, written many books and advised at the
highest levels.
Tony worked with
"He is by popular consent the most effective of Britain's eco-warriors"
The Independent
About Tony
Today Tony Juniper is the Chair of Natural England, the official Government organisation working for the conservation and restoration of the natural environment in England. He is also a Fellow with the University of Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership (CISL), working as a member of the teaching faculty and contributing to several programmes, including The Prince Of Wales’s Business and Sustainability Programme. He is also the Chair of the rainforest organisation Cool Earth and a Trustee of Fauna and Flora International. Juniper also assists Union Bancaire Privée with impact investing strategies as a member of the Impact Advisory Board and as the co-chair of the Advisory Committee to the bank’s new pioneering biodiversity recovery fund.
He began his environmental career in the 1980s, working with an innovative conservation education project in Oxfordshire with the Wildlife Trust. Juniper later worked as an ornithologist with Birdlife International , spearheading a program to prevent the extinction of critically endangered parrots. He became a recognized expert on this group and later co-authored (with Mike Parr) Parrots: A guide to the parrots of the world.
In 1990 Juniper joined the staff of Friends of the Earth, initially leading the organisation’s tropical rainforest campaign, both in the UK and internationally. From 1993 he took forward the Friends of the Earth’s work on biodiversity and later he became involved in transport policy, leading the campaign against the Newbury Bypass. In 1998 he became Policy and Campaigns Director at Friends of the Earth, and in this role played a leading part in many initiatives, including on GM crops, world trade policy and industrial pollution. During his period he led a coalition campaign that resulted in the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000.
From 2003 to 2008 he was the organisation’s Executive Director in England, Wales and Northern Ireland and from 2001 to 2008 was also elected Vice Chair of the 70-strong network of national organizations that comprise Friends of the Earth International. He contributed to many of Friends of the Earth’s most important achievements, including new laws to require more recycling and policy changes in the transport and farming sectors.
Friends of the Earth’s greatest achievement during Juniper’s time as director was the success of the Big Ask campaign, which set out to gain legal controls on greenhouse gas emissions. This was delivered through a huge grass roots lobbying effort in partnership with Radiohead’s Thom Yorke. The UK’s world-leading statutory greenhouse gas emissions reductions targets as set out in the Climate Change Act 2008 resulted directly from the success of this campaign.
During 18 years working at Friends of the Earth Juniper maintained a strong public presence for the organization and became recognised for his role in elevating environmental issues. In 2008 he embarked on a period of writing and advisory work. This included from 2008-2010 working as a Special Advisor with the Prince’s Rainforests Project and then from 2010 to 2017 as a Special Adviser to the Prince of Wales’s International Sustainability Unit. He combined this work with his role at CISL (commencing in 2008) and also being sustainability advisor to major global companies, including through his role in being a co-founder of the business advisory group Robertsbridge. In 2015 he was declared President of The Wildlife Trusts (and is now a President Emiritus, alongside Sir David Attenborough and Simon King). From 2012 to 2017 he was also President of The Society for the Environment. In 2017 he returned to frontline campaigning, as Executive Director for Advocacy and Campaigns for WWF-UK, departing in 2019 following his appointment by Environment Secretary Michael Gove to lead Natural England.
He has held a variety of other board positions including as a Trustee of Solar Aid, Ecologist-Resurgence magazine and The Wildlife Trusts of Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Northamptonshire. He was a member of the board of the Bioplastics Feedstock Alliance, that seeks sustainable ways of producing plant-based plastics. He was for a time Global Ambassador for The World Parrot Trust and chaired an industry campaign called Action for Renewables, which set out (successfully) to galvanise support for renewable power in the UK.
Tony Juniper was a candidate for the Green Party in the Cambridge constituency at the 2010 General Election. The campaign nearly tripled the Green vote in Cambridge and gained the third best Green result out of the 325 Westminster constituencies where a Green candidate stood.
Juniper frequently speaks, lectures and broadcasts on environmental and sustainability questions and has written extensively too, contributing material on ecological and sustainability subjects to a wide range of journals and other publications, while authoring and co-authoring many books. His 1998 book Parrots was judged as ‘reference book of the year’ by the UK Library Association. This was followed in 2002 by Spix’s Macaw: The Race To Save The World’s Rarest Bird, which charted the story of a rare parrot species that declined to the point of extinction in the wild and which inspired the animated film Rio. In 2007 he wrote the companion book to the BBC series Saving Planet Earth and also in that year published How Many Lightbulbs Does It Take To Change A Planet?
In 2010 Harmony was published, a major book Juniper co-authored with The Prince of Wales and Ian Skelly. In 2013 Juniper’s multi-award-winning best seller What Has Nature Ever Done For Us? came out, followed in 2015 with What Nature Does For Britain.
In 2016 What’s Really Happening To Our Planet? was published (updated and reissued in 2021 as The Science Of Our Changing Planet) and in 2017 the Ladybird Expert Guide to Climate Change, co-authored with HRH the Prince of Wales and polar scientist Professor Emily Shuckburgh OBE. This was later adapted as a children’s book released in 2023. Juniper’s most recent major book, Rainforest- Dispatches From Earth’s Most Vital Frontlines, was published in 2018. From 2009 to 2012 Juniper was the Editor-in-Chief of GREEN magazine – initially published with National Geographic and later as a supplement with The Guardian. From 2009 to 2011 he also wrote a weekly column on green living for The Sunday Times.
In 2013 Juniper was awarded Honorary Doctor of Science Degrees by the Universities of Bristol and Plymouth and a third one by the University of the West of England in 2022. Since 2016 he has also been a Harmony Professor in Practice with the University of Wales Trinity St David. In 2008 he was declared an Honorary Fellow by the Institution of Environmental Sciences and in 2013 an Honorary Fellow of the Society for the Environment. In 2011 Juniper was declared as a Patron of the Institute of Ecology and Environmental Management. He was awarded a Masters Degree in Nature Conservation from University College London in 1988, a BSc in Zoology and Psychology from the University of Bristol in 1983 and the professional qualification of Chartered Environmentalist, awarded by the Chartered Institute of Ecology and Environmental Management, in 2013.
In November 2009 Tony Juniper was the first recipient of a unique and prestigious award created by The Wildlife Trusts in honour of conservation pioneer Charles Rothschild and his daughter Miriam. In 2013 he was presented with a Chromy Award by the Conscience Institute and in 2023 Juniper was awarded the CIEEM Medal by the Chartered Institute of Ecology and Environmental Management. In 2017 Juniper was included in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List and appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE)
"One of the top ten environmental figures of the last 30 years."
The ENDS Report
Tony's Books
Parrots: A Guide to Parrots of the World
This is the first book created primarily for the field identification of parrots, one of the most familiar and colorful groups of birds. Parrots, found throughout most of the warmer regions of the world.
Rainforest: Dispatches from Earth's Most Vital Frontlines
Rainforests are the lungs of our planet – regulators of the earth’s temperature and weather. They are also home to 50 per cent of the world’s animals and plants
Spix’s Macaw: The Race to Save the World’s Rarest Bird
An environmental parable for our times – the story of a beautiful blue bird meeting its nemesis at the end of the 20th-century.
Climate Change (A Ladybird Expert Book)
From HRH The Prince of Wales, environmentalist Tony Juniper and climate scientist Dr Emily Shuckburgh, it explains the history, dangers and challenges of global warming and explores possible solutions with which to reduce its impact.
A Ladybird Book: Climate Change
Earth’s climate has changed a number of times in the past due to natural changes in the Earth’s environment. But the change in climate occurring at the present time is not natural. It is a result of the actions of people and it is happening at a very fast rate.
What Has Nature Ever Done For Us?: How Money Really Does Grow On Trees
From Indian vultures to Chinese bees, Nature provides the ‘natural services’ that keep the economy going. Yet we take most of Nature’s services for granted, imagining them free and limitless … until they suddenly switch off.
What Nature Does For Britain
From the peat bogs and woodlands that help to secure our water supply, to the bees and soils that produce most of the food we eat, Britain is rich in ‘natural capital’.
The Science of our Changing Planet: From Global Warming to Sustainable Development
Humans have had a great impact on the planet – and this science book takes a look at just how we’ve changed the planet and what we can do to soften our impact. Understand the science that explains what pressure Earth is under and how to take action!
What's Really Happening to Our Planet?: The Facts Simply Explained
It is the only book to fully review the current state of the planet and the way in which our unchecked human activity could change the world forever, with a perspective on what we can do to reverse the damage. Wide ranging, heart-stopping research is distilled into one reliable and eye-opening book.
Harmony: A New Way of Looking at Our World
In Harmony, King Charles, with the help of his two leading advisors, looks at different aspects of our modern world to demonstrate how many of the challenges seen in areas as diverse as architecture, farming and medicine can be traced to how we have abandoned a classical sense of balance and proportion
Tony speaking
Contact Tony Juniper
Tony is represented by Peters Fraser and Dunlop. For broadcast and speaking enquiries, please contact Bea Hartshorn bhartshorn@pfd.co.uk
For the literary agent’s office please contact Francesca Morgan fmorgan@pfd.co.uk and Kieron Fairweather kfairweather@pfd.
Write to Tony Juniper by using this form.