Written by Jessie Panazzolo Loneliness was sitting in the airport, cheeks stained red, raw from tears. Getting on the plane and smiling through the sadness to the air hostess. She noticed, for sure, she noticed, but she must see this all the time. Loneliness was the fear I had sitting in the back of the taxi, if you could call it that, with the inside of the door missing and – was that the road I could see beneath my feet? The 4 displays of public urination out the window and the loud beeps of the street echoed through my ears as I clutched my bag. Loneliness was that first…

Written by Jessie Panazzolo Joy and mastery are the words leading me through the year, wafting in front of me like a dandelion in the wind. I want to follow the spores curiously as they drift on currents, like a child in deep exploration. It is the childlike wonder I want to restore, the development of new skills and the practising of honed ones. I want to look in the mirror and not see a career, a job, or a uniform, but instead see myself. I want to see the way that I sparkle around the joys in my life, hear my own laugh and appreciate frivolity for what it…

January January began for us right from the moment the year started. Submissions for our latest novel idea “Letters to young conservationists” were due at midnight of the new year, giving people the rest of 2021 to submit their letters for consideration. This month was filled with work on the book, editing and reviewing the submitted pieces, illustrators toying around with illustration concepts, and starting to formulate what the overall manuscript would look like. February February was big for me personally, as it was the first time I was able to integrate Lonely Conservationists into my paid work as personal development. An opportunity came up to apply for the Women’s…

Written by Jessie Panazzolo I wish people remembered that spring only happens for a quarter of a year, and in some places on Earth, the moments that the sun radiates onto the land occurs during an even smaller fraction of that time. Spring, a time for productivity, growth and flourishing is not a time that spans longer than it needs to. In some parts of the world, bodies hibernate and go into torpor, leaves drop to the ground and the world stands still and silent for very long periods of time. These individuals don’t take one or two days off, they may slow down, their bodies nearing death levels of…

January The year started off with new possibilities as I met with someone from a brand new socially responsible networking site with the potential to collaborate and earn some money for the work I was doing with Lonely Conservationists. I met with the people behind the software regularly to provide feedback and help shape the future of this product. I was feeling positive stepping into the new year after the first edition of How to Conserve Conservationists passed its 200th sale in two months and I was chatting to amazing people such as the Fancy Scientist, and Brian and Molly from the Hive, as a guest on their podcasts. February…

January  I started off this year with a new zest for what was possible as I headed out to the smoke covered field with a fellow LC (and entomologist) where we worked day and night to study the birds and insects on an agricultural property for a….wait for it…paying client! Feeling valued for our work, we planned, proposed and conducted the surveys despite the thick air reminding us of the bushfires that raged on somewhere close by.  Unfortunately, being a part of Lonely Conservationists and advocating for fair treatment didn’t prevent me from facing sexist remarks in the field, and after failing to remediate this issue with the client, I…

Written by Jessie Panazzolo I have come once again as a lonely conservationist to share my frustrations with you on the blog. I say that I come as a lonely conservationist because I often feel like members of the community forget that I founded this community on being lonely in conservation myself. I am not a professionally trained community organiser, project manager or social media specialist, I am a conservationist like yourself, and still face all the frustrations and isolation of working in the conservation industry. The harrowing reality of my life is that twenty months on from starting the community, I am working even harder than I was before,…

Written by Jessie Panazzolo It is quite evident that I haven’t written a food for thought blog in a while, having in fact written a total of zero for this year. Today however, I was inspired to get back to the roots of this community and share how I feel about my role in the world over the past few months. Since the pandemic hit, the interest in our community sky rocketed with opportunities to represent the community at global webinars, scientific contributions and media outlets sharing stories about us. It seemed selfish to feel sad about how the articles were written. We have such authentic and incredibly soul baring…

Written by Jessie Panazzolo I haven’t written a food for thought piece this year, but this week I have been divulging more and more into the topic of male Lonely Conservationists and now I feel I need to speak out about what I have uncovered. This all began on Tuesday when I was in a meeting with a doctoral candidate discussing a paper we are writing about loneliness in conservationists. She asked me if I would like to structure the paper around gender differences in conservation, and I told her that I didn’t feel comfortable analysing that data, or making conclusions when only 21 out of the 65 blogs were…

Written by Jessie Panazzolo JANUARY  On the 29th of January 2019, Lonely Conservationists was born. I was lying on my couch, devastated that an organisation I was working with would never pay me for the work I was doing. When I was lying there moping, a conservationist friend messaged me and told me that she was also struggling with aspects of the industry. Lonely Conservationists was literally a cry for help to see if anyone else was out there feeling the way I did, or to know definitively that it was just me. That fateful day, I created the Instagram page and the Website and published my story- the very…

The thing about being a Lonely Conservationist is that sometimes we forget that we aren’t that lonely anymore. A LC reached out to me asking if I could ask the group advice for approaching a supervisor with the potential to do a PhD. It was her goal, but she was nervous as she knew the topics and labs she liked but didn’t have a specific question in mind. There is always the fear of seeming unsure or unprepared to supervisors, and she definitely wanted to make a good first impression. Soon enough, everyone was sending me paragraphs of advice! So many people either had been through this exact experience before…

Written by Jessie Panazzolo Ten months ago I was sitting on my couch feeling defeated and alone in the conservation industry, but since publishing my very first blog in January, Lonely Conservationists from around the world have flocked to the ever growing LC family. In May, I was overwhelmed when I discovered my little cry for help had since welcomed over a thousand Lonely Conservationists from around the world. I felt a sense of responsibility for these people and at the same time realised the imminent need for the conservation industry to develop a compassionate side for the people who are working so hard within it. That same month, a…

Written by Jessie Panazzolo Being a Lonely Conservationist is hard and often feels endless. I have wondered so many times if I will ever get to where I want to go, meet who I want to meet and have the experiences I have dreamed of. Recently, I realised that I have got myself to a really happy place where I’m not so lonely and I am doing some cool things for the conservation industry. Being a Lonely Conservationist, you know these feelings peak and trough but I have found that the peaks last longer when I find effective ways to deal with the slump periods. So without further ado, here…

Written by Jessie Panazzolo Being a conservationist can sometimes feel like a curse that forces you to explain too many of your life’s details to complete strangers. This is all because of the absence of a simple job title to satisfy their question: “So what do you do?” “So, what do you do” actually means “So, what brings in the money?”, and for most conservationists, money isn’t even a huge factor in our lifestyles and often times we don’t make a single cent for our work in the industry. We may make coffee, sort parcels or even sell underwear like I did for a bit, whilst doing the work we…

Written by Jessie Panazzolo Ten months ago or so, I moved to a new city. A colder city where I had to wear an actual coat outside and ten layers of blankets inside. I thought I loved winter but this type of cold affected me in ways I didn’t imagine it would. The wind-chill left me with bloodshot eyes and I had to wear gloves on my bird walks. Now, I know most of you are thinking, “whatever Jessie, you live in Australia so you can’t complain about the cold,” but to be fair on myself, bodies take time to adjust to new environments, whether it’s 15 degrees or 5…

Written by Jessie Panazzolo What is black and white and red all over? An embarrassed conservationist who couldn’t see the shades of grey. I feel like it is time to divulge a little into my own childhood for this particular story and maybe its time to share with you all how I have grown up throughout my journey into conservation. I remember being fifteen and sitting at my desk staring at an oil palm information poster about the impacts of deforestation on orangutans. I was so frustrated that I was too young to get out in the field to do anything about the issue and I was racking my brain…

Written by Jessie Panazzolo I don’t know this for certain, but I am pretty sure that when people in most other walks of life choose their professions, they do not feel the impending doom of choosing their job over proper social interactions and opportunities for relationship building. I know that growing up I never considered the potential for a long term relationship of most sorts because I always envisioned myself to be in remote or changing environments. Even as a kid, I knew that this would be a challenging life to live whilst also factoring in someone else’s needs. It turned out that my hunch was a real reality for…

Written by Jessie Panazzolo Speaking to individuals of the Lonely Conservationist community I am amazed at their knowledge, field skills and general attitude towards conservation. After speaking with them for a while I realise how fortunate I am to be learning so much and having a conversation I know a lot of others would benefit from. It is at this point where I urge them to tell their story in a blog for the rest of the community to listen in on, because if I can learn so much from just a small conversation with them, I bet many others would too. It is at this precise moment that 95%…

Written by Jessie Panazzolo A common focus around the discussions I have been having since creating this community has been education. Some people don’t believe they have had enough formal training to identify as a conservationist, some people are trying to figure out which tertiary education path to take to maximise their potential in the field, and others are drowning in data during studies and are unable to stay afloat. To tell my truth, I am not super proud of my university experience and I don’t have my undergraduate or honours degree framed on my wall. For me, university was not about getting a fancy piece of paper, wearing a…

Written by Jessie Panazzolo Looking at the Instagram page I created a mere eighteen days ago, I never expected to see the 300 Lonely Conservationists who had joined me in my plight to make conservation a little less lonely. I also never expected to get a message on every single one of those eighteen days thanking me for creating the community and letting me know how this community has come at just the right time for a lot conservationists out there. Some people had just lost their contracts, some people were drowning in data and other people felt alone in their struggles to work for free, continually switching jobs that…

Written by Jessie Panazzolo Imagine a world where you are me and you are sitting on my family couch with my mother and she starts talking to you about McDonald’s straws. Are you immersed? Good. Because this was the first of two very similar situations I was in where I was about to say the very same thing about two completely different topics. My mum went on. “Did you hear about McDonald’s stores in Europe switching their straws from plastic to paper? How ridiculous is that when there is so much more waste produced from McDonald’s products!” Next: Sitting in the car with my partner, we were discussing the date…