Jan Alexander was born in Australia in 1953. Her childhood years were spent between Melbourne and Eden in New South Wales, where her mother was born.

Her grandparents lived on a small farm three miles from the town of Eden. Jan had become aware that this place she describes as her ‘heart place’ had been cleared of its original people a hundred years before she was born.

In 1978, aged twenty five, Jan left Australia and settled in Ireland. She was at once bewitched by the beauty and character of Irish native woodlands, and alarmed at the devastation which had all but obliterated them from the Irish landscape by the time she arrived.

In 1986 Alexander spearheaded the tree planting NGO Crann, which sparked public interest in planting broadleaved trees and attracted considerable media coverage. An interview with Gay Byrne on the Late Late Show resulted in immense support for Jan’s timely message and resulted in schools, community groups and land-owners planting thousands of native trees across the country. She was appointed to the first Board of Coillte from 1988 until 1993.

In 2007 Jan became an active member of Pro Silva Ireland, a European federation practicing ‘close-to-nature’ forest management and she was chair for five years until 2014.

Jan and her partner, environmental lawyer Gabriel Toolan, are engaged in the process of restoring, repairing and wilding their 26 acre farm in County Cavan. 

        ~~~~~~~