12 Facts About Mary Colwell

Mary Colwell previously worked for the BBC Natural History Unit.

Mary Colwell is founder and director of the charity Curlew Action and Chair of the Curlew Recovery Partnership England, a Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs initiated roundtable dedicated to reversing the decline of the Eurasian Curlew.

Mary Colwell grew up near Stoke-on-Trent, and was raised as a Catholic.

Mary Colwell studied sciences at both the University of Manchester and the University of Bristol, graduating from Bristol in 1986.

In 2009 Mary Colwell was awarded a Sony Radio Academy Gold Award for Best Podcast, the first award of its kind, for her production "The Budgerigar and the Prisoner", telling the story of a prisoner Les whose life was transformed by caring for a budgerigar.

In 2016, Mary Colwell undertook a 500 miles walk from Lough Erne, near Enniskillen to Boston, Lincolnshire, to find out why the Eurasian Curlew is declining so rapidly across Britain and Ireland.

Mary Colwell led the successful campaign to establish a GCSE in Natural History, announced by the government in April 2022.

Mary Colwell is a spokesperson for environmentalism in the United Kingdom and writes articles on the subject in journals, magazines and newspapers.

Mary Colwell was listed in BBC Wildlife Magazine's Top 50 Most Influential Conservationists in the UK, and as one of the most influential conservationists by the ENDS report in 2023.

Mary Colwell has campaigned with politician Caroline Lucas and educationist Tim Oates to establish a GCSE in Natural History.

Mary Colwell is married to BBC producer Julian Hector, and they have two sons.

Mary Colwell's faith is an important part of her life, and she describes herself as a Christian.