DR. FLEISCHNER & HIS CAREER

When and why did you decide to forge an environmental career for yourself? Do you recall a specific event that sparked your interest?
I entered college as a political philosophy major, vaguely directed toward law school and a future in progressive politics. During my second year, I was convinced-almost on a lark-to take a field botany course. I've never been the same since. The "grounded-ness" of natural history was an antidote to the increasing abstraction of my political and philosophical studies. I became ablaze with new passion, as I continued to study field biology, more and more oriented at that time toward marine mammals and seabirds.

Tell us about your career in conservation biology. How did you get your start? What inspired you to become involved in this specialty?
"Conservation biology" per se did not exist when I was a student; the term began to be used with frequency in the mid-1980s, and didn't become an academic growth industry until well into the 1990s. But the notion of engaging in biology as mode of trying to make the world a better place - in other words, to put biology in service to the world - was something that seemed self-evident to me.

I was fortunate to have a few mentors along the way who were engaged in this way. The first real professional work I did, while still an undergraduate, was as part of a student team, funded by the National Science Foundation, to study harbor seal populations in Washington State. This experience opened doors - in part, just because I became very confident in being able to do the work. I spent about three years doing seasonal field work - springs and falls studying whales in Alaska with the National Marine Mammal Laboratory, summers on a National Audubon Society project trying to reestablish an Atlantic Puffin colony to an island in Maine (which has been successful, by the way!), and also doing some environmental education with kids.

Finally, I decided to attend graduate school (something I was initially resistant to), because I had a strong interest in two career paths: doing more field research, and starting an environmental field school with a small group of close friends. Grad school seemed like it would help with both. During my masters program, I began to work seasonally for the National Park Service, and became really concerned with wilderness management issues. Upon graduation, I began to teach for an interdisciplinary wilderness studies field program, the Sierra Institute at the University of California, Santa Cruz, which was a wonderful way to integrate my many different interests-scientific, political, historical, etc. During this time, my friends and I continued with increasing seriousness to try to create an institution to do cutting edge environmental education; this dream became reality as the North Cascades Institute (which, for my money, is still the state-of-the-art environmental education organization).

After helping direct the institute for three years, I had the opportunity to come teach here at Prescott College, a school that I'd been interested in for a long time. Our approach to environmental studies is broad - natural sciences are the foundation, but not the end of what we do; rather, we try to help students understand the relationship between humans and nature on many levels. When I first came here in the late 1980s, we started a conservation biology course, which as far as I know was the first undergraduate course of its kind anywhere-at that time there was just a handful of graduate programs. We've been refining our program, which now includes a degree track in conservation biology, ever since. I became increasingly involved with the Society for Conservation Biology, attending its annual meeting, speaking, and writing for its journal. I'm currently on the Board of Governors.

You've held a very diverse number of responsibilities in the field - as a national park ranger, a forestry technician, a teacher, consultant, "citizen conservationist", and school founder/director. What do you consider to be the greatest accomplishment of your career?
Two of the accomplishments I'm proudest of are helping to create the North Cascades Institute, and contributing to a new perspective on the ecological and conservation biology implications of livestock grazing, which is the most widespread land management practice in western North America, but one which had been largely ignored - in part due to its very omnipresence. It has also been gratifying to play a role in developing what I consider to be a model environmental studies program here at Prescott. And I feel very good about my book (Singing Stone: A Natural History of the Escalante Canyons, University of Utah Press, 1999), which tries to stitch together many of the diverse threads we've been discussing in the context of a specific place. I guess the hallmark of my work has been synthesis of fields and ideas that are often too separate - especially the arts and humanities from the sciences.

Where do you see your career going from here? Is there still more you want to accomplish?
Of course, there's always more you want to do. Writing has been one of my main practices, and I have many ideas on that front. I've written a couple articles lately on the importance of natural history, which is something I continue to feel strongly about. I'm currently at work on a book on desert wetlands. I want to write the great American novel, create the essential rock and roll band of the 21st century. You know - many things!

You were named in the 1996 Marquis' Who's Who in Science and Engineering, and you were the co-recipient of 1990 National Wilderness Educational Award from U.S. Forest Service. Tell us a little about how you earned these distinctions.
Quite frankly, I have no idea how the Who's Who thing came about - I just got a letter in the mail one day. I had to ask our librarian if this was a legitimate thing; I thought it was a joke at first. The Forest Service award was really, in my mind, more generally intended for the college's endeavors, but somewhere along the line it was specifically attached to one of my colleagues and me.

You've also written and edited extensively about the environment for books, professional journals and magazines. Tell us about this aspect of your career. Why are these endeavors important?
Writing is one of the fundamental ways we communicate truths to one another. So, it's important both for the writer, and - assuming you have something important to say - for the reader. This has been a major part of my own path, writing for both technical and general audiences. I take great delight in trying to express sophisticated technical ideas in a way that anyone can understand; I also get great pleasure from trying to express fundamental human emotional responses to landscapes. You can't underestimate the importance of writing to conservation biology. As I tell my students, the history of conservation is the history of people who wrote and spoke well. Or as Rachel Carson said, "Speak good English. Do your homework. And care a lot."

THE ACTUAL WORK

Can you describe a typical day in the life of an conservation biologist?
Well, I don't know that there is a "typical day", as one of the beautiful things about conservation biology is how many different skills it incorporates, and how many different kinds of work. For some, it's doing statistical analyses of data that has been collected by large teams of field workers, for others it's being out in the field collecting that data, for still others it is sitting in a room alone and writing an article, and for others patrolling the border of a nature reserve.

You still work in the field, in addition to your position at Prescott College. How much time do you spend in the office, in the field, in the classroom, on the road?
My most recent field project, with my colleagues Lisa Floyd-Hanna and David Hanna, has been to assess the long-term impact of livestock grazing at Chaco Culture National Historic Park in New Mexico, which is a fascinating place. I spend field time fairly regularly along the Gulf of California coast in Mexico, and a great deal of my teaching involves natural history field work. This summer I took a group of students to Alaska, which is such a phenomenonally important place - wildness on a scale that is very special and all too rare.

You're currently involved with the Society for Conservation Biology, the Grand Canyon Trust, and Four Corners School of Outdoor Education, to name a few. You also co-founded Granite Mountain Action, a local environmental advocacy group. Why do you volunteer so much of your time to these organizations?
Conservation biology doesn't mean anything unless it's put into practice. My involvement with these different groups is of very different natures - I'm on the Board of Governors of SCB, on the Science Advisory Board of the Grand Canyon Trust, which is a nonprofit. Granite Mountain Action was a citizen's group I helped start to fight a specific threat, a huge open pit gold mine in our community.

Is it important to belong to professional organizations, too? If so, why and what are some of the prominent ones for conservation biologists?
Without question, the Society for Conservation Biology is the key organization for the field of conservation biology - the growth of the field and the society have been inseparable. I would strongly encourage students to get involved - I think you'll find that it's easy to become involved and play a role. Pragmatically, professional organizations are a great way to network and meet people.

EDUCATION INFORMATION & ADVICE

What advice can you give to prospective students thinking about an education and career in conservation biology?
Don't forget to keep in touch with wild nature, animals, plants-whatever it is that motivates you to become involved in the first place. That essence is the foundation on which all the theory and ideas are built. Sometimes it's too easy to lose touch with it. Also, try to get real world experience in conservation work, through an internship or something similar.

For someone interested in a career in the field, is it important to graduate with a specific degree in Conservation Biology? Or is another biological track just as good - such as field biology, marine biology, wildlife biology, etc. In your opinion, what's the best academic course of action?
Every school slices up the terrain of subject matter in different ways, so degree titles are not uniform. In general, the title of the degree matters much less than the actual work that was done.

Your own degrees are not specifically in Conservation Biology. Would you do anything different with your education in retrospect?
Well, again, there were no degrees in Conservation Biology when I was getting schooled. My own education path (B.S., Field Biology, The Evergreen State College; M.S., Biology, Western Washington University; Ph.D., Environmental Studies, The Union Institute, worked wonderfully for me, so no, I wouldn't change anything. That doesn't mean I would urge someone else to do exactly the same thing, as there are many good paths.

What factors should prospective environmental students consider when choosing a program?
I would encourage people to pay attention to the nature of the interpersonal interactions they will be having, not just the mechanics of the coursework, etc.

By "interpersonal interactions" I'm referring to the human quality of interactions they will have with faculty. I'd suggest avoiding people who come across as arrogant, or who communicate (usually unintentionally!) that they are more concerned with how students will help them accomplish their research goals than with the students attaining their own educational goals. The best ways to gauge this are to have a conversation in person with a potential mentor, and to talk with other students. Some people look great on paper, but fall short in the eyes of many students.

Based on what you hear in the industry, what do you think are the most respected programs for conservation biology that really make a difference to students who graduate from these schools? Does it make a difference in the industry to graduate from a prestigious school?
There is not a clear answer to this. "Prestige" is such a phenomenally subjective characteristic in academia that I can't really answer.

JOB INFORMATION & ADVICE

What kinds of jobs are available for those graduating with a degree in conservation biology?
Everything from biological field work in remote sites to working in the policy arena in Washington - and beyond. A great resource is the Society for Conservation Biology website, which has job listings.

What advice can you give regarding the best ways to land a good job in the field? What can students do to make themselves more attractive to employers?
One particular skill which is marketable is GIS (Geographic Information Science). Every organization, whether a government agency or a nonprofit advocacy group, utilizes this technology.

How is the job market right now? How do you think it will be in the next five years? 10 years?
Unfortunately, the need for conservation biologists is growing by the day, so I can't see any way that these skills and perspectives won't be needed increasingly in the foreseeable future. That's not exactly the same thing as the "job market," however. Who is willing to pay for different studies changes rapidly and unpredictably - for example, someone who is conducting a seemingly obscure field study can suddenly become in great demand if that species is discovered to be endangered, and thus be a legal obstacle to "development" (a term I hate, by the way; conservation biologist Michael Soule suggested that "denaturation" was more accurate).

The bottom line is that there will definitely be a need for those with conservation biology training in the future, but the specifics of how that will translate into job possibilities will remain unclear. I strongly encourage students to trust their intuition in following a path that matters, and that can really make a difference in this world.

What are the hottest specialties within the field of conservation biology right now? What do you think they will be in the next 10 years?
Certainly an important specific skill that is quite marketable is knowledge of GIS, a computer-based mapping application that is used by most everyone involved in conservation - including government agencies, university researchers, or activist organizations. And because it is relatively new, many of us old geezers weren't trained in it when we went through school.

INDUSTRY TRENDS

What are some trends that you see in the field that might help prospective students?
My personal bias is that people who are able to cross disciplinary boundaries - between, say, biology, law, and economics - are going to become more and more essential. I'm glad to say I'm far from alone in this bias.

What do you consider to be the three most challenging environmental problems facing conservation biologists today?
The exponential growth of human population exerts fundamental pressure on every other problem, making them all harder to solve. And the fact that for so many people, when push comes to shove, "more-than-human nature" (a very useful term coined by David Abram) doesn't fare well in comparison with human concerns. Those who stand to profit from the despoiling of the wild are very adept at manipulating public sentiment to exploit this. You can see why those concerned about conservation biology issues must be informed and literate in the human side of conservation, and how naïve it can be to think that science alone can solve our problems. As I have written previously, science doesn't solve conservation issues - social and cultural values interacting with political processes do that. But conservation science plays an increasingly crucial role in informing those debates.

How have computers and the Internet affected the everyday life of an conservation biology professional?
Computers and internet resources are great tools in many cases. There's a lot of incredibly useful information easily available on the Internet.  

CLOSING REMARKS

Is there anything else you can tell us about yourself, your career, or the profession that would be interesting or helpful to others aspiring to enter the field of conservation biology?
We need you! The world needs you! Here is a field that offers a possibility to really contribute something to a lasting legacy of biodiversity. WE need to have bright, idealistic young people to keep revitalizing and energizing the field.

EDITOR'S NOTE: For more information about the educational and career outlook for Biology majors, click here. To learn about the educational and career outlook for Conservation Biology, click here.

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