Our Head of Conservation Programmes, Julie Thomas, joined the Synchronicity Earth team in January, 2023. In this interview, Jessie Birabil and Jim Pettiward talk to Julie about how she started out in her conservation career and hear how her experiences working in diverse regions and communities around the world have shaped her attitudes towards conservation. And we ask Julie what she thinks the conservation sector is doing well, and where it needs to improve.
Q: What made you want to get involved in nature conservation?
Julie: I grew up in a tiny village in Somerset, spending much of my childhood out in nature playing in the fields and woodlands. I spent a lot of time with my grandparents, walking through the fields foraging and learning about why nature was important to them.
But when I was about nine or 10, I started to see changes in the world I knew. Local farmers in our area began to shift from small-scale farming to larger, industrial methods of agriculture in a very short time. Many of the fields and places that I had walked in and loved with my grandparents were ripped up. Our local environment was transformed from beautiful ancient orchards and wildflower meadows into two giant, featureless fields, producing crops, but devoid of wildlife.
As farming techniques changed and became more mechanised, we also suffered from the aircraft that regularly sprayed the crops with pesticides. I remember the health problems this caused my dad – his face would swell up. Seeing this transformation really affected me as I was growing up. I was so frustrated and angry that someone could come in and do this to the beautiful place I’d grown up in, and that we simply had no say in what happened to it because we were not landowners.
That was a turning point for me, the moment I knew I wanted to work to protect the nature we were losing.
Q: Did you experience any challenges when you were starting out in conservation?
Julie: I think getting into this area of work is always challenging. When I was young, my family didn’t know anyone who worked in the environment sector. We were a low-income family and conservation just wasn’t the kind of career that you went into.
I think there have always been barriers for people from certain backgrounds, for people who can’t necessarily afford to do voluntary work or unpaid internships to get a foot on the ladder.
I was very fortunate in having the support of the small community I grew up in. Through the funds I was able to raise from my community, I was able to go to Zimbabwe after finishing my A-levels. The Zimbabwean government were looking for people to teach biology and agriculture and that’s how I first developed a connection to that country.
Later, when I was doing my Master’s in Environmental Studies and wanting to get more on the ground experience, it made sense to go back to a community that I’d lived in for a year. People knew me there, and it would be easier to carry out participatory research. I was fortunate to get some funding from the British Council for my research, but it was challenging. Without the original support from my community, or funding from the British Council, I would never have been able to get my first critical experience in conservation.
Q: Is there a particular person in conservation that you’ve admired, or been inspired by in your career?
Julie: Throughout my career, I’ve drawn huge inspiration from the individuals I’ve met along the way: whether that’s people on the frontline of protecting biodiversity, or my own grandmother’s understanding of the power of community action to create change for low-income mining families.
Working on the frontline of biodiversity conservation – members of Synchronicity Earth partner HUTAN’s restoration team. Image © Alexandra Radu
I’m always in awe of their dedication, working under sometimes extremely tough conditions, and often in voluntary or unpaid roles, often at great personal risk. I do recognise that it is so much easier for me to work in the environmental sector, sat here in an office in the UK – I’m not under those kinds of pressures and demands every day.
Q: Is there a particular region or community that you feel proud to have worked in?
Julie: One of my proudest moments came when I was working with pastoralist communities along the Ruaha river in Tanzania. This huge river flows through Tanzania, including through Ruaha national park, one of the most biodiverse places in East Africa. As well as its importance for wildlife, the Ruaha is a key source of electricity through hydropower and provides water for communities across the region. About 20 years ago, the river started drying up.
