I got distracted by nature until I realised it was the whole point.

The original plan was to be a newspaper journalist. I went to train in Wales, but when I should have been hunting down stories in the city, I often found myself wandering in the countryside. Later, after trekking in New Zealand, I began wondering whether I could marry my growing obsession with the outdoors and the natural world with my writing skills. It turned out I could, and I’ve been following that thread ever since.

For years, mountains were at the centre of it all. I loved the awe, adventure and freedom, the sense of stepping outside the noise and pressures of everyday life and into a world that was vastly older and larger. But I gradually became as interested in the landscapes themselves as the experience of moving through them. Why were Britain's uplands so bare? Where had the wildlife gone?

The urge for escape, adventure and travel fed a growing ecological consciousness. I channeled that journey into my work at one of Britain’s best-known hiking magazines, The Great Outdoors (assistant editor, then editor) and the British Mountaineering Council, where I branched out from the purely editorial world to lead large-scale environmental campaigns.

Writing for The Guardian's Country Diary for nine years also helped sharpen that curiosity, but also expanded and deepened its focus. The huge scales of mountains and geology gradually starting sharing space with caddisflies, oak parasites, otters, lapwings, hawthorn blossom, and a fascination with the tiny living dramas that are constantly unfolding around us.

Many of those threads came together in my first book, National Parks of the United Kingdom, which explored the natural history, cultural heritage and artistic legacy of Britain's foremost protected landscapes. For my second, Ocean Dreams, I ventured beyond the land altogether, telling stories of rewilding, rebirth and recovery from oceans around the world.

Alongside writing under my own name, I've increasingly found myself helping organisations find the right words, ideas and approaches to communicate what they do and why it matters. Working with Sweden's Voice of the Ocean Foundation, I've translated complex scientific ideas into engaging stories through books, publications and website copy, helping to shape the foundation's public voice. More recently, I've been editing publications for the RSPB that reach hundreds of thousands of households, a wonderful opportunity to channel a growing obsession with all things avian.

My professional roles and social media utterances have also led to appearances on national television and radio, discussing environmental issues. Sharing a sofa with the late, great Bill Oddie on a BBC current affairs programme was a particular highlight.

Nature has been the guiding force of my life and career, but travel has played a vital role too. I'm endlessly fascinated by the connections between culture - food, art, architecture, literature, music - and the environments in which it develops. The stories embedded in landscapes, and the ways people shape places and are shaped by them, are recurring themes in my writing. Cultural geography, if you want to give it a name.

Throughout my career, I've combined employed roles with freelance writing and editorial projects, following my interests across journalism, publishing, campaigning and communications. The subjects and scales have changed, from mountains to oceans, from the grand sweep of landscapes to the smallest details of the living world. But the underlying impulse remains much the same: to look more closely, understand more deeply, and find interesting and inspiring ways of sharing what I discover.