Q&A with Conservation Scientists

Anastasiya Timoshyna is TRAFFIC’s Senior Programme Coordinator – Sustainable Trade, based in Cambridge. In this role, she coordinates TRAFFIC’s work around advising governments on developing better regulations to ensure trade is sustainable, developing private sector standards, engaging businesses and facilitating consumer behavioural change. She has thirteen years of experience of working on issues of wildlife trade, most of them with the focus on trade in wild plants. Her work involves projects in China, Vietnam, Nepal, and Europe. Anastasiya has background in ecology, environmental policy and corporate environmental management. She is a Co-Chair of the IUCN/SSC Medicinal Plant Specialist Group.

How did you end up working in this field?

I was always interested in making a positive impact in the field of conservation, which brings together human-natural world interaction, so work in TRAFFIC is perfect. I deal with a challenge driven by people (unsustainable/illegal trade in wildlife), but a solution, of course, is also in people and how to make them change.

What are you working on right now?

I am busy working on a paper making the link between COVID-19 and the trade in wild plants as herbal remedies, and what it means for the sustainability of trade. You can read it here: https://www.traffic.org/news/covid-19-the-role-of-wild-plants-in-health-treatment/

What is your average work day like?

My average work day involves a lot of conversations (these days virtual) with my immediate and wider team in TRAFFIC, and external partners – to ensure the projects we are implementing are on track, to develop and meet deadlines in submitting funding proposals, to plan project activities. In a regular year, I travel a lot for work, which may be to visit a field site where we implement a project in Nepal, to attend an international policy meeting, or to present at a scientific conference.

As a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?

A railway engineer (like my parents and grandparents)

Were you good at science at school?

My school (in Ukraine) was particularly good in arts and social sciences, and I was good at those. I embarked on serious natural sciences classes in the University (studying Ecology), and yes, I did well. My preference, however, was always for subjects connecting what happens in natural world with the ‘human’ world, to understand and leverage linkages on our impacts on the natural world. Ecology, and later Environmental Sciences and Policy, were great subject areas for this.

Did you have to overcome any particular challenges to get to where you are today?

I had to do a University degree, and then learn to work in another language (my mother languages are Ukrainian and Russian), and learn to live in foreign countries (in Hungary, Australia, the Netherlands, and the UK).

What scientific development would you like to see in your lifetime?

A universally available energy source that doesn’t destroy the planet.

If you could send a message to yourself as a student, what would you say?

Don’t worry too much, there is such a thing as dream job, and you will find each other, just keep at it.

What’s the best piece of advice anyone ever gave you?

If it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing well

What is your favourite activity outside of work?

Running

What’s the best thing you’ve read or seen in the past 12 months?

Testosterone Rex by Cordelia Fine – a great book, busting the myths about the evolutionary origins of gender differences.

Tell us one thing that will blow our minds.

It is quite possible that every can of Coca Cola (and many other fizzy drinks) contains a wild plant ingredient – gum Arabic (or E414). But we do not know it for sure.

What’s the best thing about your job?

The focus on positive solutions in catalyzing change.

What’s the most challenging thing about your job?

Convincing donors that conservation of species beyond charismatic animals (such as tigers and elephants) is important and urgent to support.

Alexandra leads the plant conservation programme at Fauna & Flora International (FFI). This includes oversight of FFI’s projects under the Global Trees Campaign, a joint initiative with Botanic Gardens Conservation International (BGCI) aiming to secure the future of threatened trees in situ for the benefit of people and wildlife. Prior to joining FFI, Alexandra lead projects in a diverse array of ecosystems, from restoring grasslands in the sub-Antarctic to community-based conservation of the Peruvian Amazon. Special interests include seed collecting and crop wild relatives! Alexandra studied Biological Sciences at the University of Oxford and has an MSc in Conservation Science from Imperial College London.

How did you end up working in this field?

Listening to the rate of destruction of forests in tropical ecology lectures at university felt like a call to arms to pursue a career in conservation. After university I attended a month long ecology and conservation field course run by the Tropical Biology Association at Danum Valley Field Centre in Borneo and that really sealed the deal. I’ve always loved plants and been fascinated by their vast diversity and how little we really know about them…they also offered some great practical advantages over studying animals, like not running away or excreting on you!

What are you working on right now?

2020 marks the end of our five year strategy for the Global Trees Campaign, so together with Botanic Gardens Conservation International and other partners around the world we are beginning to discuss what the new strategy might look like.

What is your average work day like?

There are two of us in the plants team at FFI and together our role is to support plant focused conservation work across the organisation. We support regional staff in project design, providing technical input where necessary. We are also responsible for monitoring the impact of our conservation work and reporting this to our donors. Under the Global Trees campaign, FFI has projects in 15 countries so a big part of my role is building and managing relationships with the teams on the ground- there is never a dull day!

As a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?

A farmer.

Were you good at science at school?

I was good at biology but found physics and chemistry more challenging. Really, I think my strongest subjects were languages, but being a good communicator is a vital skill in conservation.

Did you have to overcome any particular challenges to get to where you are today?

The opportunity to work in so many spectacular, remote locations and meet such incredible passionate conservationists around the world is truly a privilege. But at times it does come at a cost. Jobs in conservation can be hard to get and often at the early career stages, only offer short term contracts. Perseverance, flexibility and an appetite for new beginnings are essential.

If you could send a message to yourself as a student, what would you say?

Hang on in there, it will be so worth it.

What’s the best piece of advice anyone ever gave you?

“One of our greatest freedoms is how we choose to react to things.” Charlie Mackesy

What is your favourite activity outside of work?

Besides spending time with friends and family, I enjoy hiking, in particular multi-day hikes carrying our equipment on our backs. In this new locked down world I am keeping busy growing vegetable seeds for our garden and trying to get better at identifying garden birds.

What scientific development would you like to see in your lifetime?

Affordable, accurate and instantaneous technology to identify plants, rolled out across the world.

What’s the best thing you’ve read or seen in the past 12 months?

‘The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse’ by Charlie Mackesy

Tell us one thing that will blow our minds.

There are more species of globally threatened trees, than all the bird species in the world.

What’s the best thing about your job?

The people.

What’s the most challenging thing about your job?

Not being overwhelmed by the big picture. It is important to celebrate what has been achieved so far.