Fern Wickson
Lead Facilitator (HB4)
Fern Wickson has been enamored with the spectacular diversity of life on Earth since she was a child and is deeply committed to the interdependent flourishing of nature in all her forms. She has dedicated her professional life to finding ways to care for our collective co-arising and currently focuses on facilitating inner and outer sustainability transformations through leadership, governance, and education.
She believes that sustainability and resilience require weaving the threads of different disciplinary and experiential knowledges together to craft caring ways to be in partnership with the world. Living into this, she is currently a Professor at UiT the Arctic University of Norway and program coordinator for a transdisciplinary executive master’s degree in Ocean Leadership for sustainability. She is also a Coordinating Lead Author (CLA) of the Transformative Change assessment of IPBES (the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services), as well as owner/operator of The Peaceful Wild studio for yoga and meditation in Tromsø, Norway.
Fern has worked as an environmental activist, an academic researcher, and an intergovernmental advisor. She has campaigned against the logging of old growth forests, sought solutions for nature-friendly food systems, created international exhibitions to conserve the cultural heritage of seeds, researched responsible regulation of bio- and nano-technologies, and provided policy advice on how many whales and seals may be sustainably harvested.
She has a background in ecology and political science, with a BA/BSc from the Australian National University, an Honours degree in Environmental Politics from the University of Tasmania, and a PhD on Environmental Governance awarded by both the natural and social science faculties at the University of Wollongong.
