What should be the skills of a corporate biodiversity/nature manager in 2024? Indeed, the role of the “nature manager” or ecologist into companies is moving beyond the sphere of scientists (NGOs as well as administrations) and being enriched by new needs. In a few words, there is a consensus to list the following skills (rather focused on the business context and consulting firm):
1️⃣ Strong Environmental Expertise: understanding and dealing with ecological systems, biodiversity, and environmental sciences. Nothing special but a good reminder.
2️⃣ Analysis and Assessment, to prioritize the issues according to the context and/or company. Hence the need to follow the development of tools and methods.
3️⃣ Leadership and Interdisciplinarity. Lead cross-functional teams and engage different stakeholders.
4️⃣ Strategic Thinking, because integrating nature is a long-term task. So, it is worth it to have ideas about the expected results at +1, +5 and +10 yrs.
5️⃣ Others to mention in bulk: awareness, creativity, data analysis, regulatory compliance and finally business acumen.
Sources: Copilot research with ” Quelles compétences pour un manager biodiversité d’une entreprise” and “What skills should a chief nature officer have?”, article of James Borrell on the 10 Essential Skills For Modern Conservationists, article of the employment agency Zippia on the natural resource manager skills
But isn’t there a skill missing? resiliency, of course! Because let’s not forget the barriers: the under-resourcing and -staffing, the discrepancy between the urgency and the media coverage, a frequent negative discourse, the image of the nice eccentric conservationist who can live on bread and water. Therefore, this population is often in poor mental health (Pienkowski Thomas et al., 2024)
Personally, to maintain this resiliency, I 🏃🏽. And in nature, because the benefit is even greater (see Chang Chia-chen et al, 2024). Make an effort to obtain energy, even if the picture below seems to say the opposite😅 . Other approaches exist like connect with peers, build on successes, phase your work. IUCN has a nice article on this subject: Caring for conservationists
Others write and help. Jessie Panazzolo has created a very high-quality blog on the subject: The Lonely Conservationists. Deep dive in it and get your batteries recharged 😉
With 🫶🏼 and 💡 from BioPerf.biz.
trail sustainability conservation naturepositive
Links to the both articles mentionned above
– Lucas Brunet, 2020: Face à l’angoisse écologique: stratégies émotionnelles et engageemnts épistémiques en sciences de l’environnement, in Tracés. Revue de Sciences Humaines.
– Thomas Pienkowski and al., 2021: Balancing making a difference with making a living in the conservation sector, in Conservation Biology
– Chia-chen Chang and al., 2020: Life satisfaction linked to the diversity of nature experiences and nature views from the window, in Landscape and Urban Planning.
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