Victoria Edwards

Victoria Edwards is Director of Research in the School of Environmental Design and Management at the University of Portsmouth, where in 1997 she designed and developed the MSc Ecotourism.  She has held various pubic appointments and was awarded an OBE for services to the environment in the Queen’s birthday honours in 2004.  She is a graduate of the University of Reading and was a Commonwealth Scholar at the University of Canterbury, New Zealand. She is a Fellow of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors and a Chartered Environmentalist.  She has written two books, Dealing in Diversity: America’s market for nature conservation (CUP, 1995) and Corporate Property Market: aligning real estate with business strategy (Blackwell Science, 2004).  Victoria lives in the New Forest and was involved in its development to National Park status.  She is a non-executive director of Forest Holidays, an accommodation provider with 23 sites in the UK, and her outreach work includes consultancy and training workshops on ‘greening-up’ tourism businesses. Her interests include cooking good food, producing environmental films with her husband, Rick Taylor, and walking with her West Highland terrier, Dylan.