A pivot to policy

I started my conservation journey as a marine scientist. Even as a small child, I always knew that I wanted to work “with animals” – but that’s a pretty wide mandate. In my third year at university, I took a marine science class, joined the dive club and never looked back.

The first time I went diving and was completely enveloped in the deep blue of the ocean, I knew I had found a life-long love. I had various field-based jobs in my early career, and while on an internship at Mote Marine Lab in Florida, I started doing sea turtle research. That work had me undertaking sea turtle nesting studies in Florida, then an in-water mark and recapture study of hawksbill turtles and, eventually, a sea turtle field position on Costa Rica’s Osa Peninsula, near Corcovado National Park.

In Costa Rica, I was exposed to turtle poaching for the first time. While out turtle tagging one night, a volunteer and I ran into some local men with machetes who were digging up turtle nests to sell at the local market. That experience really made me think about the range of threats to marine species; and while I enjoyed being out in the field, I started to consider how I could make a bigger difference to the conservation of species.

To Australia, and CBCS

Over the next two years, I worked as a dive guide in Florida in the winters and as a nature guide in Alaska in the summers while I (very unsuccessfully) applied to grad= schools in the US. Because I wasn’t able to find any funded positions in the US, I decided to look further afield – and ended up finding the Master of Conservation Science at The University of Queensland.

My plan was simple: move to Australia, get my Masters, learn to surf and then head back to the States after a couple of years. However, that was 14 years ago, and I am still here. I finished my Masters research at UQ, then went into consulting. Once again I was in the field seeing incredible wildlife, but this time I was doing pre mining fauna surveys – surveying all the wildlife that would be lost when a coal mine was inevitably approved. In fact, the one and only time I’ve seen a black-throated finch was doing fauna surveys at a pre-mine site. So, with a CV that was not quite good enough to secure an international scholarship for a PhD program, I started doing research assistant work at the Centre for Biodiversity and Conservation Science and teaching for a variety of classroom, laboratory and field-based courses.

With this additional experience, I was to begin my PhD at UQ, though the subject matter (biodiversity offsets in the marine environment) wasn’t precisely what I had initially planned. Little did I know that my work in offsets would set me down the policy path and lead me to my current research.

Policy for change

I love going out in the field and seeing wildlife, but during my PhD it became clear to me that policy was a key mechanism for effecting change. With offsets, for example, despite strong alignment with best practice, I saw that we were failing to achieve conservation outcomes. My PhD quickly became focused on examining those outcomes and evaluating the challenges and opportunities to do better.

By improving conservation policy, exponential change for better biodiversity outcomes seemed to be possible. Despite this, a disconnect was apparent between conservation policy and the science underpinning it. I would see (and, indeed, write) papers saying, “This may have important policy implications”. However, it was never quite clear what those policy implications were, or how a decision- maker might pick up that paper and be able to apply that science in practice.

Bridging the science–policy gap

My work now focuses on bridging that science–policy gap. As a research fellow in the Centre for Policy Futures, I work on a variety of biodiversity-related policy projects that enable me to evaluate policy to identify how better conservation outcomes can be achieved.

Through this research, I have been able to collaborate with governments, non-government organisations and stakeholders to integrate science more effectively into policy. In one such project, I am currently the regulatory co-lead of the Reef Restoration and Adaptation Program. In this role, I work with state and federal government agencies, the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority and the Queensland Department of Environment, Science and Innovation, in particular, to evaluate the current regulatory environment in the Great Barrier Reef and the ability of current policy frameworks to assess large-scale, novel restoration and adaptation interventions.

As part of this project, we have developed a regulatory forum that brings together a wide range of decision-makers and scientists to discuss both the science and policy of emerging coral reef interventions. This forum creates collaboration between agencies and scientists and helps to bridge the science–policy gap.

Restoration and nature-based solutions

UQ and current and former CBCS colleagues through the National Environmental Science Program (NESP) looks at identifying and overcoming barriers to marine and coastal restoration and nature-based solutions in Australia. As part of this work, colleagues and I mapped the regulatory framework for two different types of restoration projects across four states, collaborating with state government and local restoration practitioners. Our current NESP project will use those results to work with relevant government agencies to “de-risk” restoration throughout Australia.

This research will have multiple on-ground policy outcomes, including contributing to the development of a national restoration target under the Kunming–Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, providing much needed information to inform the development of a biodiversity market, and informing restoration investment and prioritisation in multiple states (Qld, SA, Tas).

The winding path

In my current work, I see the policy impact that I wanted to make. I can see how the work I’m doing now will be used to help improve policy frameworks for a range of conservation initiatives. But it wasn’t a linear path. There were many bumps along the road and career pivots to get here, and more to come I’m sure as I navigate the research I would like to be doing, as a mum with two small children.

While writing this piece, I read some of the other researcher profile pieces that have been published in this newsletter. What became abundantly clear, from my story and those of others, is that taking stock and pivoting in life and in your career is inevitable and will help drive your success. So, wherever you are on your career path, and especially if you’re in the midst of your own life/career pivot, know that we have all been there before, and will likely be there again soon.

Read more of these stories in Issue 18 of the CBCS Newsletter and follow us on X (Twitter) and LinkedIn.