Extract from 'Travels of a Conservationist - West Africa'

Chapter 1

 

“One small step for a man; one giant leap for an organisation”

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Becoming a conservationist isn’t easy.  The passion to ‘do something for nature' has to be there, but actually finding a job in wildlife conservation is difficult, especially if you’re like me: a doer rather than a thinker; someone who wants to see results, rather than words or research.

That’s not to say I scorn academia.  Far from it.  Nowadays, the well-recognised route into becoming an international wildlife conservationist is to gain a solid degree in biological or even anthropological sciences, followed by a Masters’ degree, or straight to a Ph.D.  Then applying, in a highly competitive field, to an organisation that undertakes conservation projects. 

In my day it was different.  Wildlife conservation as a degree wasn’t an option, because there were no courses in it.  Even the phrase ‘wildlife conservation’ was rarely used, and ‘biodiversity’ even less so.  That was to change in the 80s and even more dramatically in the 90s, following the Earth Summit (‘Rio’) in 1992.

But even though ‘wildlife conservation’ was a term rarely heard, there has been an increasing interest in protecting the environment over the last several decades.  There was an uneasy undercurrent of people recognising that there had been a boom in extractive industries such as logging or mining, increasing pollution from factories and households, and the land and sea being seemingly ravaged without any real understanding of the long-term consequences.  The arguments were being formulated, but there was a definite unease within those who loved and respected nature, and the wide range of animals, plants and fungi that lived on planet Earth.  Even as far back as 1972, the ‘Stockholm Summit’ created a catalyst for change.  Or at least the debate.  How effective the ideas and drive for environmental conservation have been since then, especially in the face of seeming unstoppable, opposing forces, is one of the main reasons for writing this series of books.  What does ‘wildlife conservation’ actually look like on the ground?  What blocks and hurdles does the modern-day conservationist need to overcome if we are to save species from extinction.  And have any of our efforts really made any difference?

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I’d always had had a passion for wildlife.  As a youngster I’d dabbled in ponds, created mud homes for toads, sat for hours under dripping wet hedges to watch birds feed their chicks, marvelling at the way the youngsters pushed their bottoms out of the nest for their parents to pluck away the white blobs of excrement; had spotted magpies, marsh marigolds and river meadows.  Sights of larger, more exotic wildlife were rare back then.  The high level of pesticide use had decimated British wildlife in the 1960s.  In those days one didn’t see foxes or badgers, I certainly didn’t, despite sneaking out of the house at dawn in the hope of seeing ratty, moley and toad.  Weasels, stoats and the Big One – otters, were something I’d seen pictures of, but never in the flesh.  I knew foxes existed, and had found chicken carcasses proving they were around, but the British countryside pre-1980 was more like a desert than a haven.  Jays were unheard of.  Birds of prey drifted slowly away. 

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There is no doubt that things have changed for the better since then.  Nowadays it is not unusual to see buzzards, badgers, foxes, woodpeckers, jays, water voles and otters.  There has been a steady, but wonderful shift that has seen wildlife return to the British countryside.  Now we face the issue that with global warming, creatures have appeared that historically have no right to be there.  Paraquets in London parks, cattle egrets on the farms, bee-eaters in the Midlands.  There is a risk that ‘displacement’ of our own wildlife will happen, especially in the invertebrate world, where insects such as the fabulously named Long-winged Conehead cricket have moved farther northwards, as the temperature has climbed, out competing our own field crickets.

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Several years ago, I met up with a colleague in the world of international wildlife conservation.  He had worked for the UK Government, as well as several NGOs, and he recently taken up the position as Director of a well-known wildlife conservation organisation that had projects at home and abroad.  I asked him, enviously, what life was like, running a department of some two hundred conservation staff.  He told me that the biggest surprise was that there was almost an even split between the team on who ‘loved’ UK and European conservation, and those who were passionate about international conservation.  I hadn’t come across this before, but it did strike a chord.  I recognised it as being relevant to several of the people I worked with; they either focussed on UK and European species, or preferred to work with tropical species.  Although I pride myself in loving ‘all wildlife’ (and I truly do), there is no doubt that my passion is working in places where there is high diversity and limited resources to help conserve threatened species in countries identified as ‘developing nations’..  Forest, plains or mountains; I feel grateful and alive when I am working in remote – and often more challenging – parts of the world.

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In 1997 I joined Bristol Zoo.  Before then, I had worked with a number of different NGOs.  I had gravitated to working with non-profit organisations without really making the conscious decision to do so.  There was something that felt right about working with people who put cause before profit.  Finding the money to keeping going was always a challenge for NGOs, and I quickly realised that funding for fieldwork was going to be a key function of wherever I was working.  I worked as a volunteer fundraiser, and was pleasantly surprised to find out I was quite good at it.  Passion for the subject was the key.

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I didn’t realise that the Bristol, Clifton and West of England Zoological Society was actually a non-profit organisation until I saw the job advertised.  It was for a ‘Fundraiser’.  I wasn’t enamoured with zoos, but as I looked more closely at what they were saying – through signage at the zoo, and through the interview process, the more I felt that I could support the fledgling change from an outright visitor attraction, to a bona fide conservation outfit.  I thought there was enormous potential, but I quickly found out that it was akin turning an oil tanker around.  Paradigms for zoo operations were embedded in the shareholders and many of the managers.  For the first hundred years, zoos have had a fairly easy time of it, building cages and keeping animals in them to show to the general public.  During the Victorian era, there was a huge drive to ‘educate the public to the wonders of the natural world’.  Later, it developed into a reason for existence – education through visiting the zoo was promoted as a worthwhile cause.  Lurking behind the educational benefit argument, the reality is that running a zoo is highly expensive, so maximising profit to keep the collection going often became the main objective.  The strategy of most zoos has been mainly that: get more people in and get them to spend their hard-earned cash in gift shops, restaurants and cafes.  Over the years, zoos have often tried to promote their conservation role mainly as a way to overcome negative criticism (‘prisons for animals’, and who wants to visit prison?), with many questions asked about their role, and whether they should be banned or not.  Coming from both external pressures, as well as internal organisational strategies, zoos have been trying to change, to reflect the need for the general public to have a good feeling about visiting, rather than feeling uneasy about seeing animals in cages.  It is difficult to justify keeping animals in cages that range far and wide across huge landscapes, such as the Andean condor, Siberian tiger, or giraffe in relatively tiny enclosures.  And it is impossible to recreate the Arctic icecap in the middle of an English city, so keeping polar bears in a zoo was like driving a train full tilt with no brakes; the crash and resulting carnage was bound to happen.

When I first started work at the Zoo, I realised that it did hardly any work in field conservation, although the sell was hard for the little support it did actually give.  This oversell tried to mask the reality.  Zoos were being called out to justify their existence other than as visitor attractions.  The World Zoo Conservation Strategy in 1992 said as much.  Bristol Zoo was a registered charity, with a mission of supporting wildlife conservation through breeding, education and helping to conserve species and natural habitats, so why was the organisation so focussed on getting people in through the front gate, and not on the impact on global conservation, was the elephant in the room (to use an appropriate idiom).  My arrival came at the right time; the long-time Director could see the wind of change, and realised that Bristol Zoo had to adjust, or perish from the weight of negative public opinion.  He supported me as I pushed for major organisational change to build a ‘case for support’, which was critical if we were to fundraise on the basis of the Zoo’s charitable work.  I also had support in the-then Operational Manager, who had recently come from Jersey Zoo, and who was steeped in the paradigm that zoos were conservation organisations, first and foremost.  Jersey Zoo founded by the conservationist and author Gerald Durrell, had a stated strategy of wanting to breed endangered species and returning some to the wild, although this is both painfully slow and relatively minute when it comes to the challenge of saving wildlife from extinction.  There are just too many different species of animals that need help.  Nevertheless, they were regarded as one of the leading zoo-based organisations at the time, and often cited as a role model for other zoos.

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Yet I felt we could do more.  Far more.  It didn’t take much of a leap to think that if Bristol Zoo had a mission to conserve wildlife, then everything – including the need to raise money through things like increasing visitor numbers – should be geared to that task.  By that reasoning, the Zoo had – in some way – to actually do ‘proper’ conservation.  However, the reality is that zoo Directors tended to panic when visitor numbers drop, and start thinking of new ways to attract more revenue, hence the sudden appearance of animatronic dinosaurs or magic roundabouts, all of which are understandable if you’re trying to raise funds, but can detract the organisation from where resources are needed for conservation.  There is always tension between the zoo commercial managers, who are targeted to increase income, and ‘mission-orientated’ managers who want to spend money on wildlife conservation.  To read more, order here

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