Nature for all

by Dan Loveard

Nature is my escape and main source of happiness. Birds have particularly always fascinated me and because of this I decided to work in nature conservation. I have been interested in wildlife from a young age and to now be able to devote my time through work to protecting wildlife and connecting people with nature is a great accomplishment and joy. I’m currently a Community Engagement Officer for Warwickshire Wildlife Trust, engaging a variety of people in wildlife, the outdoors and local heritage. I started supporting and working in the sector during my Environmental Conservation degree at Bangor University in 2012, where I gained a greater insight and appreciation of the natural world.

Since starting my degree, I have been very fortunate with starting off my career with birds, where I worked with my favourite bird, the Chough on the Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust’s reintroduction project. I also wardened beaches across North Wales and East Anglia protecting the chattering little acrobats of the sky, the Little Tern and also monitored an amazing pair of Welsh Ospreys. In each of those roles, there was an element of people engagement, which I loved doing and this has now become a prominent focus in my work. I enjoy enhancing people’s engagement with nature, outdoor learning and conservation and if I can help instil more awareness and appreciation in others with the natural world then I go home happy! Where I can, I try to integrate my interests, particularly birds and mental health into supporting local communities to also improve their health and wellbeing through nature based activities, such as guided walks, family events, training courses, birding trips and dementia friendly activities. I’m sure you can guess which activity is my favourite!

So there’s a bit of a flavour of my working life and what I would like to touch on now is an element of my personal life. So I’m a gay man and since starting in the sector I only felt comfortable to bring my whole self to work in more recent years. There were jobs I had where I didn’t feel comfortable to be my true authentic self and felt that if there were more people from the LGBTQ+ community representing in the sector then it would have empowered me to be more open. Having that visibility in the sector, as there needs to be in others, is an important way to help encourage diversity and engage more people in the environment. As we’re all aware, nature is under threat and we need more people than ever to champion nature’s recovery, so by having nature organisations promoting inclusivity, it will create an environment where the people are as diverse as the wildlife we have.

So I have to say I haven’t played my part in improving the visibility of the LGBTQ+ community in the sector as much as I wanted to, but here I am starting now. I have been inspired to take action by a number of people representing the BAME and LGBTQ+ community to help the sector reflect, learn and change, making nature accessible for everyone. My first small step was wearing my RSPB pride coloured Starling pin badge, which I wore everyday during Pride month and it remains on my binocular strap to this day, it’s a jazzy badge so why not! Over the summer I have been hedgerow surveying with the badge showing and this sparked a conversation with a farmer. We spoke about the LGBTQ+ community and he expressed his opinions, some I didn’t agree with but I tried my best to enlighten him, which he appreciated and valued. I can’t say I conveyed everything I wanted to in the moment as advocating in this way is new to me and I still need to learn more myself, but I was raising awareness which is important.

I endeavour to explore other ways to improve the visibility of minority groups through my work as well, where I have joined an EDI group to educate myself and to go further in enabling everyone to have equal access to our reserves and projects. A lot of organisations do already have policies and targeted project objectives in place which is great, but more could be achieved to take another positive step in the right direction. I hope by demonstrating my willingness to promote this change, it will hopefully break down barriers and in time there will be a diverse representation of people working in the sector and enjoying nature as much as I do.