Can you tell us a bit about your job and what you do?

I work for Radnorshire Wildlife Trust as the Head of Conservation. My role focuses on developing projects to fund RWT’s work on our reserves and ensure that our management for nature and climate is showcased; building relationships with landowners and famers neighbouring our reserves and delivering the nature’s recovery across our largest, most impactful nature reserves, including Wilder Pentwyn, whilst increasing species populations and delivering habitat resilience across our estate. 

How did you get to where you are today?

How I got where I am today is a long story, but I will try and summarise it. I was born and raised in Romania. I grew up in a small village at base of the Carpathian Mountains and I was always scared of anything that had to do with nature, except tortoises… my brother and I used to look for them when going out to graze the goats with my mum. They were big and slow and we can spend hours analysing them. The outdoors were always there in Romania, but always hard to understand, and when I was growing up conservation wasn’t really something that took priority.

When I was 10 I discovered chemistry and I fell in love with it, and until 2^nd year of University, that is what I wanted to do, I wanted to spend my time in a laboratory doing experiments and maybe try to save the world from behind a lab coat.  Why did I mentioned specifically the 2^nd year of Uni? Well, that was the year when I was offered to be a translator for Operation Wallacea during their Transylvania expedition. Until that summer, I have never been camping (another activity that not many Romanians do), and never been on so-called hikes. I decided to go, it was a great opportunity to improve my English and get to meet lots of new people. That was one of the best summers ever, I got to spend time with inspirational and knowledgeable people, make many friends, discovered myself, learnt about wildlife and by the end of it all I decided that this is what I wanted to do next. Since then I got into bird watching, and bird ringing… by joining the expedition each summer first as a translator and afterwards as a leader on the birds surveys. I carried on being part of that expedition of another 4 years.

Once I finished my master’s degree I moved to Wales and I started applying for jobs and going to interviews. It took me 5 interviews and tens of applications to get my first paid job in conservation, with RWT as the Exploring Gilfach Assistant Project Officer. Through this role I had to accept that I needed to push my boundaries and challenge myself, I had to learn about a new culture and how to approach people, new survey methods and how to identify new taxonomic groups… as well as learning about all the systems that are in place when you work within an organisation.

After that role, things just started to happen, and after volunteering for a couple of months with RWT (once my contract ended) I got the role as the Black Grouse Project Officer, which was followed by the Community Wildlife Officer, and then the Stand for Nature Wales Community Officer and now the Head of Conservation.  

What advice would you give to aspiring conservationists?

I would start with, no matter what don’t give up! Keep going, if you are passionate about wildlife and would like to work within the conservation sector you need to carry on. You do need to put the time in building that experience and knowledge, and the only way you can do that is by taking advantage of any opportunity that comes your way… also you need to remember that you need to get out of your comfort zone once in a while, and the opportunities won’t come to you unless you show others that you are willing to take anything on. That is something that I didn’t mention earlier, my offer to be a translator didn’t come from nothing, it came from making myself seen: I volunteered for the student NGO for two years, I became one of the student reps as well as always asking questions when I had them (yes I was the annoying person who at the end of the seminar gad lots of questions). Everyone is different and I understand that, but excitement, passion and initiative look the same, you just need to let them out!