different conservation job roles

[annie2]

Hi,

I completed a degree in animal conservation and biodiversity last year at Hadlow College.

I have volunteerd with and completed work placements at several countryside partnerships/projects and parks - mainly habitat creation / management, with the odd bit of surveying and office work.

I have epilepsy, which has stoped me being able to apply for some jobs as i would have needed a driving and/or chain saw licence and i am not allowed to operate the machinary for obvious reasons.

The college career advisor only told us how to do a personal statement and how to do a CV and said she didn't know anything about conservation jobs. and the women at Prospects told me to look in the yellow pages!

Can any one tell me what conservation job roles exist?

I only now of project officers and countryside rangers.

Thanks

[Turndolph69]

Hi Annie2,

I work in conservation and have done for the last few years. A good place to check out varous jobs in conservation is Country Side Jobs and Emvironmental Jobs. Failing that a search on Environmental jobs in Google may take you to other sites. There are so many different areas of conservation to work in and volunteer.

Good luck

Turndolph

[Words]

Also do check out your position in terms of disability legislation. Some jobs may have obvious restrictions for driving/machinery, but employers are required to make what are called 'reasonable adjustments' to enable people with disabilities to work. Hence, if transportation to sites is an issue, an employer should provide support (other drive, taxi). It may be the same with chainsaws. You can do the rest of the job, but not operate a chainsaw so some else does does that bit (not necessarily a problem if most of the work is in small teams).

Do check out your rights in this area. This link may be useful.

And good luck!

[annie2]

Hi,

Thank you for all your information.

I will look into the disability legislation as i didn't know about employers helping with travel/machinery.

Thanks

Annie

[metalfish]

Turndolph has suggested the best job advert sites, also check out the county and local council websites for vacancies.
Most places won't reply to you if you don't get picked for an interview but dont let this dishearten you. The best advice I was given was to keep on trying, beyond when you feel like giving up. If you ask anyone with a job in conservation it's usually taken alot of applications to get there coz there is so much competition, but you will get there. I did and I was so over the moon when it happened, I've only got a 6 month seasonal ranger position but it's the next step, and I'm not expected to use any machinary nor did I need those certificates to get the interview.
Good luck & don't give in.

[eeyore]

The inability to drive is going to be the biggest stumbling block i'm afraid - even most project officer and ranger jobs require you to be able to either drive the works vehicle or have your own.

and the DDA isnt going to help - it requires that employers make "reasonable adjustments" to allow disabled people to take employment - for example by having a works vehicle adapted to hand controls for a wheelchair user - there are very few reasonable adjustments that can be made to accomodate epilepsy unfortunately - the provision of a driver would not be considered "reasonable" and most work cannot be done via taxi due to the nature of the driving (often off road, transporting tools or events materials, emptying bins, patrolling etc)

I'm not saying that you should give up , but IMO you need to tailor your application to only those jobs where driving is not required asnd that isnt likely to be project officer and rangers. - I would suspect your most likely avenue is either as an education officer on a nature reserve / feild studies kind of site where everything is within walking distance, something like an arent birds brilliant officer at a static site, or an ecological field where work is done in pairs such as bat survey or radio tracking etc. Such jobs are quite thin on the ground so it isnt going to be easy but i wish you luck in any case