Bethan is a PhD researcher, freelance storyteller and qualified journalist, who has led award-winning media projects to report on the complex interplay of issues that we face as we live through the ecological and climate crisis.
In recognition of this work, Bethan was made an honorary member of The Explorers Club in 2021 and in the same year won the Scientific Exploration Society Explorer Award for Inspirational & Scientific Trailblazing.
In 2023, Bethan began a PhD project that’s using creative, participatory methods to produce community-made films that explore Wales’ approach to environmental and climate issues through co-creation with farmers, growers, landworkers and environmentalists.
By running a series of storytelling and filmmaking workshops, the aim is to create space and time to explore a diversity of views and experiences, building on common ground and collectively problem-solving. Read more about the research project >
Documentary films
In 2018, Bethan directed their first award-winning documentary, Voices on the Road, about Indigenous rights in the Amazon. It has been screened at film festivals worldwide, including Tampere Short Film festival, and is now available to stream online.
Bethan successfully raised funds to produce the documentary and Impact Campaign through a variety of sources, from securing multi-year grants to launching a successful crowdfunding campaign.
Her subsequent experimental documentary, Defensoras, was released in 2024 and formed part of a collaborative project with Indigenous women in Bolivia who are fighting to protect their ancestral homes from exploitation and destruction.
As part of the Defensoras project, the team ran Participatory Filmmaking workshops with a group of Indigenous women from the native community of San Jose de Uchupiamonas in Madidi National Park, a critically important protected area in the Amazon Rainforest.
Participatory Filmmaking can be a powerful tool to bring community members together to explore issues, voice concerns, build skills, empower and communicate their needs to decision makers.
The Defensoras project – in collaboration with Bolivian Indigenous rights orgainsation, CONTIOCAP, and international conservation organisation, the IUCN NL – explores why female Indigenous empowerment is central to our global fight against ecological and climate collapse. Bethan said:
Through working in the conservation sector and media industry, I have witnessed how systems of colonialism and patriarchy continue to prevail as mechanisms of oppression. I have become aware, over years of first-hand experience, that the most impactful and equitable way of protecting our natural world and fighting climate breakdown is to uphold the rights of Indigenous women.
Journalism & communications
Bethan’s multimedia work has been published in leading international news outlets, such as Al Jazeera, Mongabay and The Ecologist, exploring the complex social, political, economic, environmental and climate issues facing communities living in some of the most biodiverse places on Earth.
As a communications specialist, Bethan is highly experienced at raising significant funds for projects and promoting them to a worldwide audience, through online and in-person engagement campaigns.
She has worked for numerous international conservation organisations – such as Birdlife International, the World Land Trust and Synchronicity Earth – to raise awareness and funding for their work to protect biodiversity and tackle climate breakdown.
She is also an experienced guest speaker and educator, having been invited by influential institutions – such as the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and the Royal Geographical Society – to present talks on environmental, climate and Indigenous rights issues.
Education & research
Bethan is passionate about leading and facilitating educational courses and workshops; in 2017-18 she created and ran a three-month experiential media internship at a research centre in the Peruvian Amazon, providing skills and mentorship for early career starters so they can build experience and expertise within the highly competitive media and conservation sector. She is now a regular guest lecturer for postgraduate courses run by the Centre for Alternative Technology (CAT).
As a PhD researcher, she is using Participatory Filmmaking as a tool to carry out community-led research on Wales’ approach to environmental and climate issues through land management and farming. The project is in collaboration with Aberystwyth University, Cardiff University, and CAT, and is funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC). To find out more, please contact: bsj3@aber.ac.uk