Austin Brown

Background

About Austin Brown

Having initially trained to be a pilot my career aspirations were cut short after an eye test found I did not have 20/20 vision, a requirement then - now days you can simply wear glasses! So what next, well that’s history and having then perused my first love, for wildlife, I worked in conservation including for ZSL, Jersey Zoo and for the Mauritian Wildlife Foundation. Now I am the Team Leader of a highly successful team of 12 consultant ecologists at Arup’s headquarters in London with 18 years of experience in ecology. My clients are diverse and range from the likes of Foster & Partners, Zaha Hadid, Grimshaws, HS2 and Thames Tideway through to small independent architects and support roles for local government. The type of work is equally diverse including the usual suspects such as EIAs and managing protected species surveys. But I am equally at home working in masterplaning teams and have a significant track record of working on projects from the regeneration of Silvertown Quays in London through to city scale developments such as Irfan in Oman and the new Dongtan Eco-city in China. Here I ensure that green infrastructure, and the inherent ecosystem services it delivers, are integrated into designs to benefit communities and biodiversity. Ecotourism is the fastest growing sector of the tourism industry and this is an emerging area that I am leading on in Arup. Recently I played a significant role in the Seychelles strategic plan which included creating policies to drive ecotourism within the country.