How to Conserve Conservationists. Jessie Panazzolo
to produce scientific outputs about conservationist wellbeing and share the wider implications of our common experiences within the scientific community. Wanting to learn more about the factors that influence our success in the industry, I have produced a monthly web series of discussions and workshops on topics similar to those featured in this book. It is my aim that conservationists can have the opportunity to learn more about themselves and how best to navigate the industry from a psychological perspective. The interactions with the scientists in these discussions and workshops are intimate and authentic so that the Lonely Conservationists that participate feel welcome and valued in the space to break down the ever-prevalent impostor syndrome. I have been so fortunate to present some of my work on conservationists at a range of international scientific conferences such as the Earth Optimism Summit run by the Smithsonian Institute. Speaking of impostor syndrome, for the week before the conference, I proceeded to have a total life crisis over the fact that my bio was showing up next to the bio of an incredibly accomplished NASA scientist. Working with members of my community, mentors, and professional contacts I am always striving to bridge the gap between NGOs, businesses, educational institutes, and individuals in the industry. I am always using my mental machete to forge a new path for myself and work on projects that enable all passionate conservationists to collaborate, build community, and share resources and knowledge to further their impact and preserve their wellbeing.
Thanks to the thousands of Lonely Conservationists in my community, I am definitely not lonely in conservation anymore, but as a conservationist conservationist, I still retain the lonely badge. There are very few people who are working on research associated with factors that impact conservationists and I am so thankful for those I have been able to connect and work with. I also uncovered the term “conservation psychology” which unfortunately relates to how people interact with their environment instead of the actual psychology of conservationists. I have not yet found a term that concisely sums up what conservationist conservationists do, but sometimes I nestle myself under the conservation psychology umbrella just to see if there is room.
After managing the blog and the community on social media platforms, finding and building relationships with other scientists, and conducting my research, I have decided that I need to pass on some of what I have learnt with others. I truly believe that throughout this journey, I have learnt a lot of information that I’m sure escapes most people. I am positive, however, that some of this knowledge can help people like past Jessie who felt very undervalued, burnt out, and frustrated with her time navigating the industry.
It must be noted that this book is not just for the Jessies out there, but it is probably more useful for the non-Jessie’s to read. The people who are outside of the industry but may have conservationists in their lives, or people who have established themselves in the industry and have forgotten what it’s like to be early on in their career. I think this book would be useful if you are the mum or dad, brother or sister, partner or friend of a conservationist. It would be amazing to know that the people in my life could understand what I was going through when I came back from long trips away in remote areas, or while convincing local NGOs to employ me.
I do want to establish right from the start, that when I mention the word “career” throughout this book, that I mean the time from first acting on a conservation passion, and with it all of the study, volunteering, and citizen science that may have been undertaken. As you may gather from my reasons for creating this community, paid jobs in conservation are surprisingly challenging to come by, so if you are a conservationist reading this, let the word career sum up your time and efforts so far in the industry.
Another term I want to establish right from the start is the word “conservationist” for when I say it I mean anyone who is acting to conserve wildlife or habitats in their lives. If you’re a stay at home mum and you try and reduce waste as much as you can around your household, BOOM! You’re a conservationist! If you are a lawyer who tries to reduce paper usage around the office, brings a keep cup to work every day, and encourages your office mates to improve their recycling efforts, then you guessed it- you are also a conservationist. Environmentalists, naturalists (the kind who keep their clothes on…and those who don’t too I guess), biologists, zoologists, and ecologists alike all fall under this blanket term because I truly believe that anyone who can make strides to conserve our natural planet is indeed a conservationist.
I do need to stress that everyone who I have described, especially the mothers and lawyers out there, may not have experienced everything that I talk about in this book, as they may have never tried to pursue a career in the industry- but that’s okay. The more people who take the time to listen to our stories, try to understand what we go through, and empathise with our cause, the better. I also want to acknowledge that the lived experiences that I touch on in this book are limited to the confines of my personal experience and those shared with me from members of my community. I understand that I will never know what it's like to personally defend one of the last remaining rhinos with a gun in my hand and my body on the line. Despite this, I do want to share as much information as I can within this book to help anyone from a mother who is reducing household waste, to a rhinoceros defender.
So now you know the context and the language of this book, you are now fully prepared to dive straight into the first chapter. I hope that you enjoy my meandering autobiographical journey into the life of a conservationist and that at least some of the content I touch on can help either a conservationist in your life or even yourself. Hopefully, by using this book as a guide, we can all conserve conservationists together.
The art of talking to a conservationist
Weirdly enough, during the past decade or so that I was working on conservation projects, I never once considered the language that others used to talk to myself or others in the field. I have only started to realise the importance of language since individuals have been interviewing me about my work or from reading books about more people-centric aspects of conservation. These factors combined with reading the stories from my community, and talking to the members individually, has led me to realise the importance of how we speak to people invested in the environmental movement and conservation industry.
I was interviewed for the Nightlife program on ABC radio about Lonely Conservationists when the very last question caught me by surprise. The host asked me what the future looked like for my community and what everyone could expect. I started off by explaining how challenging it is to solve all of the issues impacting conservationists on my own, especially when this is a new path that has yet to be forged. I was promptly cut off and the interview ended before I could go on to say what projects I was working on. I sat with the discomfort of this question for some time and thought about how I was expected to wrap up my experiences in a tight bow of trying to navigate a systemic issue as just one person. I tried to grapple with why I felt guilty about my response even though the issue of conservationists being mistreated and underpaid obviously isn’t a simple issue to fix. To be honest I don’t even know if this is an issue I can fix on my own.
I confronted this same question again weeks later after a Lonely Conservationist had sent me some questions that he wanted to ask me on his podcast, and there it was again. The very last question sitting there and haunting me. To my surprise, my fingers started typing a response faster than my brain could decide to reply and I started to express my discomfort for that question.
It is important to understand how much pressure conservationists and environmentalists put on themselves to keep making strides to save their home planet. I cannot stress enough how the self-imposed pressure to achieve perfection revels in the minds of most eco-conscious humans out there. We are often experiencing bouts of burnout, exhaustion and are sometimes even nearing the cusp of apathy from how much we try to do to protect our planet as dedicated and resilient individuals. To ask what the future of our work entails suggests that you are not content with how it is now. It suggests, even indirectly or unintentionally that what we are doing needs to be improved, changed, bigger or better.
Planting this seed in a conservationist’s mind is fodder for insanity. Usually, we are already doing everything in our power to create change. Every change we do make only highlights the changes that we aren’t making and that causes