Latest / How To Protect The Ocean / The People Saving the Ocean Are Burning Out

Transcript

The People Saving the Ocean Are Burning Out · How To Protect The Ocean

• 0:00
  A growing number of people working in ocean conservation, they're exhausted.
• 0:03
  They're burnt out and quietly leaving the field.
• 0:06
  This is the How to Protect the Ocean podcast, your weekday ocean news update.
• 0:09
  If you care about staying informed about the ocean news every weekday,
• 0:13
  hit that follow button right now so you don't miss tomorrow's story.
• 0:17
  Look, most people enter ocean conservation because they care deeply for the ocean.
• 0:21
  They love marine life.
• 0:23
  They want to protect ecosystems.
• 0:25
  They wanna make a difference.
• 0:27
  But behind the scenes, many conservation professionals are dealing with
• 0:30
  something much harder to talk about.
• 0:32
  That's burnout, emotional exhaustion,
• 0:35
  financial instability, to be honest, and the feeling that
• 0:38
  problems keep getting bigger.
• 0:41
  So today's question is this: What is the emotional cost
• 0:45
  of trying to save the ocean?
• 0:48
  Ocean conservation is often crisis-driven.
• 0:51
  Scientists study declining coral reefs, fisheries collapse, marine
• 0:55
  heatwaves, plastic pollution, species decline, and many professionals spend
• 1:00
  years immersed in those realities.
• 1:03
  That takes a psychological toll, especially when progress feels
• 1:07
  extremely slow, or when funding just disappears, or when political decisions
• 1:13
  ignore scientific recommendations, hint, hint, Trump administration.
• 1:17
  And of course, there's also the financial reality of just not getting funding.
• 1:21
  Many early career conservation jobs are temporary or contract-based.
• 1:26
  People move constantly between projects and move far for these projects.
• 1:30
  Some leave the field entirely because they can't build stable
• 1:34
  careers or even stable lifestyles.
• 1:36
  And despite the emotional intensity of the work, mental health conversations in
• 1:40
  conservation are still relatively limited.
• 1:43
  There's another challenge that we're seeing here.
• 1:45
  Conservation organizations often feel pressure to stay hopeful publicly.
• 1:50
  Everybody wants to be optimistic.
• 1:52
  And to be honest, that makes sense.
• 1:54
  People respond better to optimism than to doom.
• 1:57
  But internally, many professionals are carrying frustration, grief, and
• 2:01
  exhaustion, especially when ecosystems continue declining despite years of
• 2:05
  work, years of science communication.
• 2:08
  And of course, social media adds another layer.
• 2:09
  Scientists and advocates are increasingly expected to communicate constantly online
• 2:15
  with no financial incentive, mind you.
• 2:17
  Right?
• 2:17
  We talked about it the other day, and that made sense.
• 2:19
  You should have a growing profile, and you should be talking about it.
• 2:22
  We always love to talk about it, but it's not necessarily part of our job, although
• 2:25
  it's starting to be more and more part of our job, which is nice and helpful.
• 2:28
  But it can create pressure to always appear productive,
• 2:31
  informed, and optimistic.
• 2:32
  Like, there are so many times as I was doing this podcast where I
• 2:34
  didn't want to share clips online because I wasn't near an ocean.
• 2:37
  I wasn't showing what it was like to be on a boat or doing field work like a
• 2:40
  lot of other people who are successful.
• 2:41
  I don't have access to go diving into a coral reef and look at
• 2:44
  this kind of beautiful thing.
• 2:46
  Right?
• 2:46
  I don't have access to see sea turtles or dolphins as I'm driving a boat around.
• 2:49
  I sit in an office, and I talk about ocean conservation and science on this podcast.
• 2:54
  And it's great for me, but it's tough.
• 2:56
  It's a lot of pressure to share online because I'm like, "Is this actually
• 2:58
  gonna land? Is it gonna stick?" So even when people are overwhelmed, and because
• 3:03
  many conservation professionals care deeply about the ocean personally, work
• 3:07
  stress often becomes emotional stress.
• 3:10
  And the ocean is just not a job to them.
• 3:13
  It's part of their identity.
• 3:15
  I've explained this before, but as a marine biologist or ocean conservationist,
• 3:18
  when you do work in the ocean, it's really tough to turn that off.
• 3:22
  You're always thinking about what you can do for the ocean, what type
• 3:25
  of projects you can come up with.
• 3:27
  You gotta write those ideas down.
• 3:28
  You gotta do some scientific analysis if you're a data cruncher, and you're
• 3:32
  trying to figure out how to get across, like, this R code, and you haven't figured
• 3:36
  it out, and then all of a sudden, at two in the morning, you wake up, and you're
• 3:38
  like, "Eureka, I've figured it out."
• 3:40
  And you go on your computer, like, from two to four in the morning
• 3:42
  because you haven't actually figured it out, and it just stresses you
• 3:45
  out, so you're not getting the sleep.
• 3:46
  It's like being a marine biologist, being in ocean conservation
• 3:49
  is part of our identity.
• 3:51
  And so, like, having that is really difficult.
• 3:54
  It's really difficult to deal with on a daily basis.
• 3:57
  You have to come up with boundaries.
• 3:59
  There's no doubt about that.
• 4:00
  Boundaries is a huge thing.
• 4:02
  But I think conservation organizations are slowly starting to recognize this issue.
• 4:06
  There's growing conversation around burnout, healthier workplaces,
• 4:09
  sustainable careers, and better support systems within that.
• 4:12
  Even at conservation conferences, we're starting to see more support
• 4:15
  for people so they feel more included, so they wanna come.
• 4:18
  If they're new parents and they wanna bring their kids,
• 4:21
  there's daycare at these places.
• 4:23
  'Cause if it's really, really far, there's some scholarships that you can take or
• 4:26
  some grants that you can get or bursaries that you can get to fly across there.
• 4:30
  Or they're moving conferences from place to place or all around the world so
• 4:34
  that it's easily accessible to places where that normally can't go to like
• 4:37
  North America because they live in Asia, and it's expensive to go there.
• 4:40
  So we're starting to see things change in that way.
• 4:43
  But some organizations are also discussing like mental health resources,
• 4:47
  realistic workloads, long-term funding stability, and communication boundaries.
• 4:52
  That's really good.
• 4:52
  And to be honest, it actually matters because conservation requires people.
• 4:57
  If experienced scientists, communicators, educators, and advocates keep
• 5:02
  burning out, the entire movement loses knowledge and momentum.
• 5:06
  And protecting the ocean, it's long-term work.
• 5:08
  It's a career thing.
• 5:10
  That means people who are doing the work need sustainable careers too.
• 5:13
  Enough of this paying by contract by contract.
• 5:16
  It's up to the conservation organizations to do more to
• 5:18
  get better sustainable funding.
• 5:20
  And to be honest, if you wanna get better sustainable funding, you can check
• 5:23
  out the sponsor of the show and the place that I work for, Pisces Oceans.
• 5:26
  We work to help with your communication for your organization to get out to
• 5:30
  the right people, speak to the right audiences, and get known for what you do
• 5:34
  and get funded for what you do and have that long-term stability, that financial
• 5:39
  stability so that you can get your workers, your staff long-term stability,
• 5:43
  financial stability, and be happier with those boundaries and with that stability.
• 5:47
  So check that out, piscesoceans.ca.
• 5:50
  Love to work with you.
• 5:51
  Hit me up on LinkedIn or any of my socials in the show notes, and I'd
• 5:54
  love to have a conversation with that.
• 5:57
  So the future of ocean conservation really depends not just on protecting
• 6:01
  ecosystems, but on support for the people who are trying to protect them.
• 6:04
  I think that's a really important thing.
• 6:07
  It's really important to protect the people who are working on these
• 6:09
  systems 'cause they work hard, and they have a lot of passion for
• 6:12
  this, but they deserve better.
• 6:13
  We all deserve better for things that are happening in and around our ocean,
• 6:17
  and we're trying to protect them.
• 6:19
  So if you enjoyed this episode and you wanna check out the interview that I'm
• 6:22
  doing tomorrow with James Misner, who's a nonprofit consultant, he gave great
• 6:26
  tips with ocean consulting or ocean conservation, nonprofit like organization
• 6:31
  and business management and fundraising.
• 6:33
  That's the episode you wanna hit.
• 6:34
  So hit that follow button right now so you don't miss tomorrow's episode.
• 6:37
  That's it for today's episode.
• 6:38
  I wanna thank you so much for joining me on today's episode of the
• 6:41
  How to Protect the Ocean podcast.
• 6:42
  Have a great day.
• 6:43
  We'll talk to you next time, and happy conservation.