Author: Jacob Jones
I have always been interested in the natural world. When I was growing up, I wanted to be a palaeontologist travelling the world in search of dinosaurs. That dream then evolved into wanting to be a volcanologist, although I quickly talked myself out of that in after a series of news articles in the early 2000’s about the Yellowstone supervolcano in the U.S. However, ever since I have had a deep fascination of the nuts and bolts of Earths systems, both ecological and geological.
When I finished school in a small country town and moved to Newcastle, NSW second largest city, to study environmental engineering. I learned chemistry, physics, and maths in my early years which laid the foundations for water engineering, hydrology and catchment management in the later years. I was fortunate enough to score a job at a local consultancy in contamination and remediation: a big industry in post-industrial Newcastle. However, I had always felt a stronger desire to help people, rather than corporations (sorry to all my consultancy friends out there!). So, I used the skills I had learned to get a job at the Newcastle Council as a graduate engineer. Over five years I was able to work in stormwater management, waste management, coastal management, and environmental planning, while serving my community. I never knew just how connected the environment was almost all aspects of our society.
It was here, despite my long interests in ecology and geology, I encountered possibly the most important of Earths system: social-ecological systems. The connection between people and the environment. The way culture, politics, economics, and history shape the way we manage and relate to nature. Whether that is constructing wind farms, nourishing an eroding beach with sand, or clearing a forest for a highway. All these management decisions are made by people with beliefs and values about social-ecological systems. To me, it is clear that understanding the association between people and the environment is essential to preserving the planet that filled me with wonder as a child.
So, after years of thinking, I decided to leave my job to return to university to peruse my PhD on the politics of biodiversity conservation. Now, I am developing skills to understand how people, governments and organisations interact with nature and biodiversity. I hope to understand better how to promote the conservation of nature to audiences regardless of the political beliefs. At the moment, I think I would like to return to government to influence environmental policy. However, reflecting on my fortune of working in so many different environmental fields in a relatively short career, I know to expect the unexpected. A career in the environment is both challenging and rewarding in unique ways. There is nothing quite like it.
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