About us

Nature People was established in April 2015 by Matt Croney.

Matt’s background is as a property manager for the Peak District National Park Authority where he managed iconic landscapes including Stanage Edge and the Eastern Moors. Here, he reconciled extreme conflicts of opinion and established ground-breaking partnerships and public engagement processes. He became Head of Property Service managing a broad range of properties covering 15,000 acres of the National Park, including iconic landscapes, heritage buildings, visitor centres, campsites and cycle hire centres. He then moved on to become Director of Living Landscapes at Derbyshire Wildlife Trust, where he developed a Living Landscapes Landscapes Action Plan and DerwentWISE HLF landscape partnerships. After a spell as interim Chief Executive, he left to establish Nature People.

We have a number of associates, providing additional skills and experience, so that we can offer a full range of countryside management services and are rapidly expanding. Associates include: Catherine Croney – interpretation expertise; Ian Layton & Glyn Parkes – schools and youth engagement; Dave Savage & Richard Whiting – practical conservation work and volunteers co-ordination; and Martin Evans – woodland management, bushcraft skills, woodland crafts and youth engagement.  Click on the names for further details.

We also work in association with a number of other companies depending on the task, to add further expertise and capacity to take on large, multi-disciplinary projects.  Those companies are: Icarus who offer further stakeholder engagement expertise across a range of fields; inHeritage who are heritage interpretation experts;  Resources 4 Change who provide similar services to ourselves in Wales and the West Midlands; and East Peak Countryside Associates who develop local groups, sustainable businesses and projects.

We believe in partnership working.  Nature is too precious for conservation organisations to compete against each other.  We are happy to work with any organisation that seeks to improve things for nature and for people.