For over 30 years James has worked in forest management, research, incentives, regulation, policy, and strategy roles, within the Forestry Commission, as well as being seconded to lead the Scottish Government's climate change adaptation programme. As Director of Operations he leads on forestry and land management, as well as on policy and insight, and health safety and technical training.
His particular interests are in forest landscape restoration and climate change resilience - not just the resilience of plants and animals, but of humans too.