Vanessa Lucy, Department of Environment, Land, Water, and Planning (DELWP), Victoria.

For many of us early career ecologists we are figuring out where we fit in this world. Are we zoologists? Are we botanists? Perhaps both? Are we destined for academia, government, or industry? Did what we learn in university even mean anything? Most of the time we don’t have the answers until we have come out the other end, and even then we are still making things up as we go along.

My name is Vanessa Lucy and I am an ecologist trying like many of us to figure out our place as scientists and people, in this strange, incredible, challenging, and shifting career path.

I find myself now as a Biodiversity 2037 Project Officer with the Department of Environment, Land, Water, and Planning (DELWP) which is a mecca for conservation work in Victoria. I graduated from the University of Melbourne in 2016 where I undertook a Master of Environment (ecology) degree, completing field-based research into urbanisation impacts on amphibians. This meant I recently celebrated my 5 year ‘working ecologist anniversary’ (woo!) although the road underneath that was rocky indeed. 

After graduating, I was surrounded by most of my friends picking and choosing their PhD projects, destined for life in the academic lane. After scraping together pennies to make ends meet towards the end of my Masters and months on end of thesis stress writing, I was not interested in signing up for another 3-4 years of minimal paid work where friends in other industries had been out earning solid incomes and using the degrees they already had.

I was set on becoming an ecological consultant. One thing led to another and after countless cold-emails around the entire Melbourne ecological industry – will analyse data for food(!) – I started an incredible role at the City of Melbourne as a Project Officer Ecologist. It wasn’t the original ecological consulting plan I had laid out, in fact, it turned out to be better.

What followed was almost 3 years learning the ropes of working in biodiversity in local government. I was 23 and struggled with the abrupt transition to office life and being surrounded by far more talented, experienced people which I now realise was the greatest thing that can ever happen for you early on in your career. You always want to be the least experienced person in the room, as that’s when you grow.

I started off doing jobs that didn’t strike me as ‘ecological’ – be that attending urban planning meetings about new roads or bike paths being installed, conducting community engagement, or working with graphic designers to publish strategies and plans. I didn’t get to exercise my ecological field skills, but I did get to employ my ecological knowledge and advice, speaking with park planners about how to better construct their wetlands to encourage habitat for frogs or how to best retain hollow-bearing trees.

I also struggled with the reality of full-time work and the fact my degree and internships barely prepared me for what it’s really like working as a young ecologist. Back then I had next to no developed skills in project or event management, how to manage a budget or pay an invoice, or how to create websites, infographics, or various other communications products. I rapidly had to learn all of this.

What was also extremely challenging at first was speaking with people in a work context from different industries (website creators, architects, engineers), who barely even knew a reptile was an animal. As ecologists we assume people love nature just like we do, or want to value and understand it.

The reality is few people care deeply about our natural world and my attitude is we need to be realists and acknowledge this. Then our role becomes clear, we are here to educate and inspire in the simplest way possible, so all our various audiences understand, make a personal connection, and then act on this.

If you want a career in ecological management in government these skills are ones that you will utilise frequently – the scientific component of your degree will make up a small proportion of what you do at work. But in return you are met with immense benefits, like being in that room deciding what threatened species to fund action for or where to build a new national park. Life as a government ecologist also means incredible work-life balance, an excellent steady salary, endless networking opportunities, and a chance to help reverse ecosystem decline.

After those precious formative years after university, I dabbled in living overseas and interstate with research work on novel ecosystems at Trinity College Dublin and ecological consulting in Brisbane. All those experiences led me back to working as an ecologist in government, at the state level now.

After 5 years I’m still on the journey to figuring out this dilemma of “what type of ecologist am I?” and perhaps we won’t ever really know. The most important thing is creating your own opportunities, knowing you’re good enough or willing to learn, trying out industries you never thought you’d like, and always apply for that job that says 2 years + experience when you have 0.

Vanessa Lucy is an ecologist and zoologist working with the Department of Environment, Land, Water, and Planning (DELWP) in Melbourne, Victoria. Find her online at Twitter (@VanessaLucy_) or LinkedIn.