How to Conserve Conservationists. Jessie Panazzolo
Dedication
This book is dedicated to both my community of Lonely Conservationists and all of the people who have ever genuinely supported me on my conservation journey. Your empowering words, listening ears and open hearts have carried me through the rollercoaster of experiences and emotions that I have faced over the past two decades. Without people like you in my life, who knows, I may not have made it this far to be able to tell my story.
why do we need to conserve conservationists anyway?
On the 29th of January 2019, I was lying on my couch and letting my mind wander to a fictional self-help meeting in my mind. In my vision, I sat among others in the imaginary circle of chairs with the faint aroma of Arnott’s assorted biscuits and instant coffee wafting in the background. You must keep in mind that I have never actually been to a real community group help session of any kind, so I can only go off of what I have seen portrayed on TV and in movies. The group facilitator nods at me, and so I introduce myself.
“My name is Jessie and I am the loneliest conservationist in the world.”
“HeLLo JEssIE.”
Before this session could continue, a buzz in my pocket snapped me out of it. It was my friend from Spain who I had formally met in Malaysia while learning all about elephants in preparation for my honours degree, where I was to study elephant ecology for six months. This friend of mine was phenomenal at what she did and I loved her enthusiasm when she talked about her work. Unfortunately, she often had undertones of self-doubt in her voice as everyone else around her in the project was doing a PhD or a Master's degree. It was challenging to feel like an outsider as the only non-student research staff who wasn’t a local.
This friend wasn’t messaging me about these feelings however, but other feelings of uncertainty. She told me that she was stuck in Spain while waiting for her visa to be approved so she could go back to Malaysia to continue her work. This perfectly timed message was enough to snap me out of the delusion that I was the loneliest conservationist in the world and at that moment, I wondered how many lonely conservationists there were out there.
I had been working in various conservation projects, studying, attending conferences, and liaising with professionals in the field for decades at that point, but I was still living in a unit with my partner that I could not pay a single cent of the rent for. I devised a plan as my first new year’s resolution possibly ever, that I was going to find a place to volunteer, stick it out and prove myself until they valued me enough to employ me. Yes, I thought, this would be it. This would be a great plan.
Third wall voice: This was not a great plan.
For my partner's work, we had to relocate our lives from Adelaide, South Australia to Melbourne, Victoria in July of 2018. I had contacts in Adelaide that knew some people in Melbourne which provided me with an opportunity to volunteer for a reputable Australian Non-Government Organisation (NGO). I loved the work produced by this organisation, including the projects I was working on and so I went in every day for eight hours a day as if I worked there as a full-time member of staff. I worked on complex data analysis and report writing that was well beyond the means of a volunteer, which encouraged me to get my hopes up for achieving my new year’s resolution of obtaining paid work within the organisation. The people from the office knew my skills, my dedication and even asked me for help from time to time, and so I thought I was integrating into the office and had a shot at employment.
Third wall voice: She didn’t have a shot.
It got to a stage in my work with this NGO where I was told that my reports were going to have funding implications for a specific project, which to me finally rang bells of the situation getting a bit out of hand. I felt that if my work was having funding implications, that I should be paid for my time and valued for my efforts. A job advertisement even came up for a different project within the organisation and I applied, but it was not to be. They sat me down with a coffee at a nearby café and explained to me that the election was coming up and that they needed someone with previous NGO experience to dive in and hit the ground running, experience that they didn't think I had. As weeks went by and nobody was hired, I couldn’t help but notice that they could have used this time to train me. This went unnoticed by them.
That weekend I sat at my friend Tim’s table in the small town of Echuca, about two and a half hours drive from my place in Melbourne. He hates me saying that what he gave me was an intervention, but it felt like it at the time. I remember so vividly staring down at the table feeling like my life was over as he told me the hard-to-hear truth that as long as I was working for free, they would never hire me. My resolutions were crushed and I dreaded my imminent future as I made the decision not to return to the office again.
So, there I was on that fateful Monday, lying on my couch imagining I was at a group therapy session and thinking that I was the only person on Earth who had experienced the groundhog days of the conservation industry. Time and time again, giving my all, proving my value, and being left to the side feeling worthless, but having to muster the energy to start again. I was exhausted and I felt like there was nothing more I could offer to the industry that could change the way I was perceived. I had worked as a part of grassroots conservation organisations across seven different equatorial countries and I knew what was impacting different communities and ecosystems from real-world experience. I had won an award for my research at an international conference in Singapore after completing my research on the spatial ecology of North Sumatran orangutans and elephants in a newly restored forest ecosystem. I had also worked with some of the top conservationists in tropical rainforest conservation, and to be honest there weren't many more rungs I could climb on the social ladder, for Sumatran orangutans and elephants at least. If all of my efforts in learning a diverse array of knowledge in similar landscapes in different geographic locations, my understanding of academic education from two different degrees, from two different universities, and my network of professional colleagues who could vouch for my work efforts weren’t enough, what the hell would be?
There is no doubt in my mind that I was done with the industry at that point, as no conservationist speaks out about her truth if she has something to lose. The stakes were too high in the industry and the cost was too great with so few jobs available and so many incredible candidates to choose from. When I got that message from my friend, I was inspired to find out the truth, or at least tell my truth. I got up, walked to my desk, and created a blog that I titled “Lonely Conservationists” and I just started writing. A friend suggested I make an Instagram page to promote the blog of the same name and so I did. I hit publish on both platforms and waited for either nothing to happen or for an onslaught of heckles about me being entitled or someone who just didn’t try hard enough to make it in the industry.
What I never expected was the 50 blogs that I accumulated from other global conservationists over the rest of that year, and the weekly blogs that continued to flood into 2020. I never expected the Instagram page to form a community of thousands of others who also dubbed themselves “Lonely Conservationists” who formed their own localised communities over shared interests or location. I never expected the comradery or the “me too!” that constantly echoed in our minds as we read each other’s stories. I never expected that although I never got that job in 2019, that I would still find my calling. In that fateful year, I made the transition from conservationist to conservationist conservationist and I learnt so much about the way we feel, the way we are treated, and the way we share experiences across the globe. It is not just me, not even just Australian conservationists that can relate to the struggle, but there are people in India and Canada and Croatia that feel it too.
Lonely Conservationists has since become a pioneering platform in creating a space for conservationists across the globe. I have been on a quest to determine how best I can transform the industry to accommodate the wellbeing of conservationists in the field, in offices, and their homes. The blogs have been continuing since week one, with global conservationists sharing and normalising their lived experiences with a range of constraints such as natural disasters, mental illness, and isolation.