Rob Hopkins is the co-founder of Transition Town Totnes and of the Transition Network. He has many years experience in education, teaching permaculture and natural building, and set up the first 2 year full-time permaculture course in the world, at Kinsale Further Education College in Ireland as well as co-ordinating the first eco-village development in Ireland to be granted planning permission.

He is author of ‘Woodlands for West Cork!’, ‘Energy Descent Pathways’ and most recently ‘The Transition Handbook: from oil dependence to local resilience’, which has been published in a number of other languages, and which was voted the 5th most popular book taken on holiday by MPs during the summer of 2008. He publishes www.transitionculture.org, recently voted ‘the 4th best green blog in the UK’(!). He is the winner of the 2008 Schumacher Award, an Ashoka Fellow, is a Fellow of the Post Carbon Institute, served 3 years as a Trustee of the Soil Association, and was named by the Independent as one of the UK’s top 100 environmentalists. He is the winner of the 2009 Observer Ethical Award for the Grassroots Campaigner category, and in December 2009 was voted the Energy Saving Trust/Guardian’s ‘Green Community Hero’. He lectures and writes widely on peak oil and Transition, and is researching a PhD on Transition and resilience at Plymouth University. He lives in Devon and is a keen gardener.