‘An epidemic of suffering’: Why are conservationists breaking down?

In December 2024, Rachel Graham, executive director of the Belize-based marine nonprofit MarAlliance, posted on LinkedIn that she knew “5 wildlife & conservation scientists who have taken their lives this year so far.” She called it a “crisis” that needed tackling. The post went viral, garnering about 18,000 impressions and 45 comments.

“I’m seeing a true crisis in the conservation community,” Graham tells Mongabay.

People become conservationists because they care, Graham says, but that can also lead to huge mental health problems in an age of biodiversity decline, climate change and environmental distress. Add to that the perils of the sector — often low wages, poor job security, overworking, dependence on fickle grants and burnout — and you have a ripe recipe for mental health issues.

“If your identity is inextricably linked [to a mission], then when this is imperiled, the threat becomes very personal,” Graham says. “That, to me, I think, is really one of the biggest cruxes of the problem that we’re seeing right now in conservation.”

The problem isn’t anecdotal. A 2023 study in Conservation Biology interviewed more than 2,000 conservation professionals and found that more than a quarter of them (27.8%) were suffering from moderate to severe distress in their lives. The study found that women and early-career professionals were especially at risk.

Thomas Pienkowski, lead author of the study, stresses that the paper is not stating that conservationists are more prone to mental health issues than the general public — “We don’t really have the data,” he says — but that clear issues within the sector are causing distress.

“If there are factors driving psychological distress, and we can do something about them, then we should,” Pienkowski says.

Vik Mohan, a medical doctor and conservation leader with 20 years in the field, says he has seen a “growing epidemic of … suffering” in the conservation community.

“It breaks my heart,” he adds.

One obvious reason why conservationists are struggling: The natural world, their purview, is also suffering.

From eco-grief to eco-depression

According to WWF, global wildlife populations fell by 73% from 1970 to 2020, a staggering, shocking loss. Around 90% of global fisheries are either maxed out or overfished — just one facet of the frail health of our oceans. Then there’s climate change: The world has heated up nearly 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) in less than 200 years, with impacts beginning to pile up, and no end in sight.

“Twenty years ago, you came into conservation with a much greater sense of optimism, whereas now, you cannot escape the urgency and the enormity of the crisis,” Mohan says. “There’s that sense of urgency and the eco-anxiety. … That’s a huge driver to the growing problem of poor mental health and well-being in the conservation workforce.”

Those who work with wild creatures may feel the impact even more, according to Graham, who herself works with marine megafauna like sharks, rays, big finfish and turtles.

“These are other beings who are suffering because of our choices. Although we must bear losses to nature, we are also the agents of suffering,” she says.

Some conservationists get to know animals as individuals and then watch them perish due to human actions, leading to greater grief — and a grief that society does not readily recognize.

It’s a double-edged sword, sources say. The destruction of the natural world may inspire many conservationists to act, but facing the bleakness day after day can also, obviously, cause great distress. Eco-grief has become a general term for the feeling of despair someone may feel as they confront the destruction of the natural world.

“The climate breakdown and biodiversity crisis has reached a point where I don’t think many people believe that we can recover anymore,” says Jessie Panazzolo, the founder of Lonely Conservationists, a group devoted to caring for conservationists.

Panazzolo says she heard from one student who attended a talk by a prominent conservationist who told the audience “there is no use embarking on a conservation career.” The student changed majors after that.

Graham says she’s worried about stories like these.

“We need our young conservationists … to [help] carry on the fight and bridge this period of decline,” she says, before potential natural recovery in future generations.

But living in a “period of decline” is incredibly hard — especially when we have no idea if our actions will, indeed, lead to a better world when we’re long gone. Conservation has always been generational work, depending on the faith that others will take up your cause when you’re gone, but that aspect of the work requires hope. And hope may be more difficult to come by.

The outcome of working against such forces, Mohan says, is often burnout.

“People giving up, just very quietly giving up.”

But sometimes the psychological distress goes beyond burnout and grief and into full trauma. There is a lot of conservation work happening in conflict zones, which can lead to deadly incidents and ongoing distress.

“I had a conversation with a colleague who does inspiring conservation work,” Mohan says. “Their program site was attacked by a terrorist insurgent. A couple of their staff members were killed. … We were talking about how to support the team at this time. [They] said to me, ‘Whoever thought that conservation would be like this?’”

Industry mis-standards

On top of the challenges of living every day with the environmental losses, conservations endure how the sector operates and how it is financed, according to sources.

Panazzolo says the primary problem is that conservation is “an industry of passion.”

“There are many people willing to do anything to get their foot in the door, so if one person leaves a role due to mistreatment or substandard conditions, there are usually many more willing to take their place,” she says. “This gives no incentive to organizations to provide higher levels of care to conservationists.”

This trait in the sector leads to many of its ills, according to Panazzolo and other sources, including low wages, exploitative practices like endless volunteering or unpaid internships, job insecurity, few benefits and high (sometimes wholly unrealistic) expectations for output and work.

“The sector was never designed with the well-being of the workforce in mind,” Mohan says, noting that many conservation leaders, often from a scientific background, haven’t had training in how to run an organization or how to help maintain staff well-being.

For those working in the field, often far away from their home communities, there can also be loneliness, isolation and cultural whiplash. Such jobs often come with zero support for mental health.

Another major issue: the fact that conservation depends on funding usually from governments or donors.

“It’s a really hard, competitive and poorly-funded field,” Graham says. Funding often comes from grants, whether from governments, international institutions or other nonprofits, which means funding is usually tight, not focused on staff well-being and can quickly collapse.

“When you look at funding for conservation, how much money is earmarked for staff development?” Mohan asks. “There are some grants where you can’t even put in money for staff. Who’s going to do the work, for goodness’ sake?”

Graham says the sector is so rough that it can lead workers with Ph.D.s to wonder if they can ever support a family and remain in the sector. Conservation has even been described as a “rich-person’s profession,” meaning only people with privilege and money have a good shot at making it work.

The demands of a conservation job are also high, especially as those demands tend to rise in proportion to perceived threats.

“We see people continually giving beyond their capacity. Rather than working to their capacity, they’re trying to work to their need. That’s not sustainable long term. You end up with this ethos that you have to fall on your sword,” says Mohan, adding, “Then, it almost becomes an abusive relationship.”

Gender gaps

The paper in Conservation Biology found that women in the sector were especially prone to psychological distress. For decades, conservation was largely a “man’s world,” and only in the last few has it broadly opened up to women leaders.

Graham, who herself has worked in the sector for decades, is a single mother with two children. She calls it “very, very difficult” for women.

“You’re paid less. You’re considered inferior,” she says, adding, “What happens if you have a partner, or if you have kids or you want to have kids? Good luck.”

At her past job, Graham says there was no maternity leave when she had her second child. “I was back on a boat diving and tagging sharks within a month of [the birth]; I couldn’t afford not to,” she says. As to her first? “I was tagging whale sharks while 6 months pregnant and delivering my baby 36 hours after delivering my Ph.D.”

Graham adds, however, that the work also takes its toll on men, though perhaps in different ways. Of the five conservationists she knew who died by suicide, all of them were men. This disturbing fact fits with research: In the U.S., men are around four times as likely to kill themselves across society, according to the CDC.

Working globally in the tropics, Graham says male conservationists may be particularly stymied by a culture of machismo and silence around mental health.

“There’s still a lot of stigma, especially in tropical countries,” she says. “If you’re depressed, burnt out or you talk about anything to do with mental health, it’s a stigma. You are considered weak. If you’re weak, there’s all kinds of other ramifications to being perceived as weak. You may not receive funding. You may be marginalized and passed over for promotion. You may not be taken seriously.”

This implies there is a perception that even talking about mental health could impact one’s (already precarious) career trajectory in the conservation world. While discussion of mental health has become more mainstream in general in recent decades, there are still many places where one can reasonably fear retribution for admitting mental health struggles, or even alluding to them.

Graham says they were “all very smart, driven, accomplished and very intelligent” as well as “extremely caring, very empathetic,” describing the men she knew who died by suicide. Some “would drive 150 kilometers [90 miles] to save a wild animal.”

“I wouldn’t want people to change how they are or who they are, but when I see that people are extremely selfless at the expense of their own health and that of their family, then it’s time to intervene and say, ‘You need to step away and you need to disassociate yourself a bit, perhaps reframe who you are to ensure that your work is not your identity,’” Graham says.

Mohan says that taking care of oneself should not be viewed as a weakness but “an act of social justice.”

“Looking after yourself is part of the work. It’s part of caring for the planet. … It’s the same act of resistance,” he says.

Making it better

That leads us to the simple question: What can we do to make it better for conservationists? How can we make this a sector people not only want to join, but where they are able to do so and stay sane?

Panazzolo says organizations need to talk about mental health and create the space to do that, such as “having regular weekly wellness check-ins.”

She also says workers, especially leaders, need to model taking mental health and “care” seriously. If a leader is driven nonstop, and assumes everyone is the same, workers will try to emulate that until they burn out.

“[If] you’re willing to do whatever it takes to get the job done, it means you’re a great employee, but it means you’re probably more likely to burn out,” Mohan says. He stresses that organizational leaders need to focus on “belonging, autonomy and competence” for their employees to thrive.

“Decolonize your conservation career,” Panazzolo says. “The Western way of conservation is extremely isolating, putting the weight of the world on your shoulders and expecting you to give all of your blood, sweat and tears to the cause. Living in relation and reciprocity to nature and your community means strengthening bonds, sharing care and resources and being nourished.”

There is work here for donors, as well.

“I think a lot of stressors … are linked to the lack of funding, especially unrestricted flexible funding, that help to pay people’s salaries, support innovation and collaboration and the ability to pivot and adapt during times of crisis,” Graham says. “It’s what so many of us in this sector constantly worry about.”

Put simply, the sector needs more sustainable long-term funding that includes adequate money to pay people fair wages — money that goes to staff and not just projects. Donors need to find innovative ways to support organizations and well-being. To this end, leadership also matters. Conservation leaders, Mohan says, need to make sure they include budgets for staff and staff development in their funding pitches.

“Good organizations … say, ‘I value my workforce,’” Mohan says.

There is a personal aspect of this as well. Mohan, as a medical doctor, says people need to prioritize taking care of themselves.

“Getting enough sleep, getting enough exercise, eating healthily, drinking enough water, getting enough rest. Frankly, if you don’t do those things well, you may as well pack up and go home,” he says. Such things may sound obvious, but Mohan says he sees conservationists sacrificing the basics of self-care for the mission — and then expecting others to do the same.

Then it’s learning to draw self-care boundaries.

“We need to work to our capacity, not work to the need,” Mohan says. “We cannot single-handedly solve the crisis. The first step is knowing your limits, knowing what you need and honoring your priorities as a professional.”

Mohan further stresses that it’s vital to stay social when things are hard: Seek out others and find joy wherever you can.

Conservation doesn’t have to be a miserable career. In fact, if anything, it should be joyful. It’s a career of intense meaning and purpose. It’s a career that is potentially full of life-changing moments in the wilds of the world or among like-minded colleagues. It’s a career that, in big and small ways, really does make a difference.

“Perhaps the most important message is that change is possible,” Mohan says, adding, “There’s lots of reasons why working in conservation can be good for our well-being.”

Banner image: Turnbull NWR – Waterfowl Surveys. Image by Gabriel Williams / Picture Perfect Visions/USFWS.

See a related commentary:

Emotional and psychological stresses beleaguer conservation professionals (commentary)

Citation:

Pienkowski, T., Keane, A., Castelló y Tickell, S., De Lange, E., Hazenbosch, M., Khanyari, M., … Milner‐Gulland, E. J. (2023). Supporting conservationists’ mental health through better working conditions. Conservation Biology, 37(5). doi:10.1111/cobi.14097

Credits

Morgan Erickson-Davis Editor

This story first appeared on Mongabay

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