Professor Chris Baines was trained as an horticulturist and landscape architect, and has been a champion of habitat creation and nature conservation for more than forty years. In the 1980s he taught landscape design and management to postgraduate students and became well known to the public through environmental programmes on TV and radio, and through his writing. He created the first wildlife garden at the Chelsea Flower Show as long ago as 1985. He has been a long standing Vice President of the Royal Society of Wildlife Trusts and his work honoured by the RSPB and the British Naturalists Association. He now concentrates on advising central and local government and corporate clients in utility, mineral and development industries.