
Chris Wilmoth
Project Manager with the Environment Agency where I manage large-scale civil engineering projects to minimise flood risk in Devon, Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly.
Location
Exmoor
Why I joined EmGen
To learn about different ways of doing things and to meet like-minded people who I can potentially collaborate with to create abundant agroecological systems.
Interests
I manage a 25-acre woodland on Exmoor (Keltings Copse) which with the help of friends, I am restoring as a productive coppice. I am experimenting with a 15 species tree mix in the rotations to produce food, tannins, leather, charcoal, bio-char, tool/structural wood and carving wood. I am also experimenting with transitioning Bracken into woodland. Through this model I hope to revalue woodland by producing products that meet every physiological need and which thus reposition it as being an integral piece of the agroecological puzzle. I am also involved in setting up a not-for-profit agroforestry co-operative within West Somerset, Mid Devon, North Devon, East Devon, South Somerset and Sedgemoor which will offer landworkers secure employment, free access to land and affordable accommodation next to it. It will also offer landowners premium ELMS payments that they otherwise wouldn't attempt to access and a succession service, enabling them to retain their farms and some control, whilst the co-op manages their land for them. Additional to this, I am a Director of a not-for-profit engineering co-operative (Combe Technologies) that is developing hand tools and clothing for agroecological landworkers and which can develop farm-scale equipment to meet a business's size and specific needs.
Knowledge signposts
🌳The Man Who Planted Trees Film has been a continued source of inspiration despite it being fictional.
🌲Highly recommend getting involved with the National Coppice Federation and Landworkers Alliance
Educational/training highlights
A year of Project Management experience- have managed £4.5 million worth of projects
Worked as a Manufacturing Engineer in the Aerospace Engineering sector where I gained 8 years of engineering experience
1:1 BEng (Hons) Engineering degree and an APM PMQ
How I can support other members
I can support other members with putting together the economics for their micro-enterprises and helping them to aggregate them across their land-based businesses to deliver a diversified business model. I can share economics for micro-enterprises that I'm developing and I can support members with developing shared brands so that together we can deliver economies of scale.
My next steps
Finding landworkers (and people who wish to be landworkers) who wouldn't mind relocating to gain free access to land and affordable accommodation next to it in community.