THE Review's wildlife expert, Ivan Proctor, is celebrating a milestone 25 years working for nature conservation in Britain.

And of that total the last 14 years have been spent in the Forest of Dean, where Ivan heads the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds team caring for reserves at Highnam Woods and Nagshead, as well as the peregrines of Symonds Yat.

"When I first came to the Forest in 1987 it was not without apprehension," he told the Review.

"I though the people I would be working with in Forest Enterprise would be dyed in the wool foresters and I would be very much an outsider.

"As it happened they were very welcoming and happy for me to get on with my work with birds and conservation while they attended to their business, which was trees."

Since those days, he said, Forest Enterprise had changed greatly as has the growing emphasis on conservation.

"As well as that I had the benefit of working with people like Bob Godfrey, who has an encyclopaedic knowledge of the Dean and its wildlife. Bob has been very helpful and encouraging," he said.

Yorkshireman Ivan started work with the RSPB in 1976 as assistant warden at Hareswater, Cumbria, the only place golden eagles nest in England. He lives at Milkwall, Coleford.

He has taken part in many important projects including the introduction of natterjack toads to the charity's UK HQ at Sandy, Bedfordshire.

But the Forest has been central to his life's work and he says his time here has been most rewarding.

"The beauty of the Forest is that although it has been modified by industry it has never been an extensive area of agriculture and because of this it is an area of very complete woodland. It is like woodland in the rest of the country should be," he said.

It had a few outstanding rarities like the goshawk and the firecrest but its main benefit was an almost complete fauna and flora, plus a huge range of tree types.

And of the future he said we faced major challenges, such as global warming, "but it is encouraging to see the environment being taken more seriously by local authorities and commercial companies".