A huge bugbear among many aspiring conservationists, is that most interesting conservation jobs and roles require experience. To get experience, you often need some previous experience.. and so it goes on and on until, eventually, you get lucky.
I find best way to make them ordinary is to surround yourself with extraordinary people.
I want to work in conservation, but I'm not sure where to start.
If you're alive now (and you are), then you're alive at just about the most important time in human history for conservation.
Expeditions can feel like the culmination of months or years of hard work, and the comedown of stepping back into reality can be strange. But just as they say ‘it's better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all’ - the same is true for expeditions.
Photography is an incredibly important tool in conservation. You can have all the data and research papers in the world, but unless you inspire action then conservation will remain an uphill struggle.
If you want to support conservation, I think that there’s two main ways to do it.
Last month, Craig Turner and I were excited to have an article in The Biologist magazine about biological expeditions, something which we are both pretty passionate about.
I think the most important thing to say, right from the start, is that you don't have to know what you're doing.
Conservation is a great thing to write about, and for this reason I'm frequently get emails from people thinking of starting their own websites and blogs. To help answer their questions, I thought I'd share a few of the things I learn't from setting up my own site.
Write well. Write frequently. Persevere. Focus on that, and the rest will follow.
If you've ever aspired to find a job in conservation, here's some useful resources to help you achieve it.