Over the next year, I’ll be continuing to write a blog series called The Effective Conservationist, all about how one person–maybe you–can make a difference in slowing species extinctions.
In an era of rapid species disappearances, pollution, climate change and deforestation, it’s easy to feel hopeless. Many of the problems species face today seem insurmountable.
Fortunately, one person really can have an impact in preventing species extinctions. Rather than paralysing us into to doing nothing, then, the challenges we face today are a call to action for us all.
What is a conservationist?
I love the word conservationist. It’s so inclusive.
Too often, working towards wildlife conservation is seen as synonymous with being a conservation biologist and getting your hands dirty in the field. Fieldwork and science are definitely important (and fun!). But being a conservationist is so much more than that.
More importantly, it has to become so much more than that. Only when environmental concerns are brought into the mainstream and put front-and-centre in personal and public decision-making do wildlife and wild places stand a chance. And this will involve mobilising actors from all sections of society.
Whether you’re an economist, journalist, business owner, lawyer, filmmaker, artist, farmer, statistician, teacher, tech entrepreneur or engineer, you can be a conservationist.
In fact, you can probably be an even better conservationist than many a field biologist, because most field biologists end up focusing on tracking species declines rather than trying to solve them.
So:
A conservationist is anybody who dedicates some portion of their time towards the protection and preservation of biodiversity and the environment.
Yup, it really is as broad as that!
What about the “effective” bit?
Being an effective conservationist just involves being proactive in thinking about the ways you personally can make the biggest difference with your time and money.
Probably the defining attribute of a an effective conservationist is that they can point to tangible real-world contributions to conservation that wouldn’t have been made in their absence.
There are many ways to make a difference in slowing species and population declines. And there’s probably no simple path to being an effective conservationist (I certainly wouldn’t classify myself as one yet–this series is as much about my exploring how to become one as anything else).
That said, here are a number of traits that might differentiate an effective conservationist.
- Thoughtful cause selection. Some areas, regions, species, ecosystems and causes are more important than others. Rather than just following your heart and interests, considering such things as the scale, neglectedness and solvability of an environmental problem can be a helpful way of prioritising your projects to do the most good.
- Trying to make evidence-based decisions wherever possible.
- A willingness or attempt to measure the impact of your actions. How else do you know if your project made a difference? How else can you learn from mistakes and improve? I’ll probably do a whole blog post on impact evaluation soon enough, because it’s the baby brother of effectiveness.
- An outwards-looking mindset and understanding of the bigger picture. For instance, if you’re really interested in stemming biodiversity loss, it might be better to focus your efforts away from home and in more biodiverse and typically poorer regions, where money goes further.
- A willingness to commit to an issue for as long as it takes for impact to be made.
Let me know if you can think of any more!
Interested in helping stop extinctions but don’t know how? (See here).
Want to find an important environmental problem to focus on but don’t know which one to pick? (See here).
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