The world, new and improved
With a whole new world unfolding — cautiously, slowly — post-COVID-19, what new sectors will open up that can be done through telecommuting, social media, education, and data management?
What about opportunities beyond screen presence?
One promising set of careers involves the rebuilding of local communities, both their economies, and their resources, through sustainable careers.
Ecotourism, which offers a way for any local economy to tie sustainability to success in thriving business, is one such possibility.
These kinds of positions require a great deal of creativity, and innovation. The technology part will require constant input, but most of them also call for mastery of online presence. A few of the possibilities include creating an online infrastructure, communications directors, assessment and location managers, project and budget supervisors, platform creation and marketing, and boots on the ground participation in tourism, history, and maintenance of a viable location.
The bottom line is, if people have spent far too much time indoors, binging on reality shows like The Tiger King, or better yet, any fantastic BBC’s series, Earth, or Blue Planet, they are hungry for reconnection to the natural world.
They know the amazing pull of wild animals and landscapes, and the chance for one of a kind family vacations. But, immersion in those worlds requires a marriage between world web availability and the support of any local economy that will benefit from such human hunger for the wild.
Job one: participate in protecting our place
Such jobs as these not only reconnect the human heart and mind to nature, they also aim to protect and recover an imperiled world. The reality of the climate crisis, of course, did not go away in a global pandemic, and jobs are needed to protect humans as well as habitats. And, the world now knows the connection between how we treat habitats — such as those of pangolins and bats, but also forests cleared for livestock — and world pandemics.
People want new hope after such dire dealings, and thankfully, there is hope being generated, for conservation, but also for community.
Opportunities are almost as endless as our imaginations and defended resources. Here are a few:
Infrastructure is needed for connecting people to the great outdoors, or at least to their own business starved neighborhoods. For example, perhaps there is an historic park or museum in your region, or perhaps there is one halfway across the globe.
Whether it be an elephant sanctuary, or a pioneer fort on the Lewis and Clark trail, there are places that need human help, and human visitors. Taking care of storage, servers, equipment and needed software is no small feat, and will require millions of minds.
Some jobs
Communications Directors will be needed to coordinate marketing, advertising, arranging campaigns and keeping public interest alive and engaged. It takes more than photos of cute penguins to attract people to a passion they may not yet know they have. The communications personnel will find creative ways to spark hope and inspiration. For example, inviting people to participate in citizen science projects, such as spotting wildlife at watering holes, is one way to attract the curious and the passionate.
Such positions are linked to management positions such as Social Media Coordinator, web management gurus, and other related positions. Because every point and locale, has different needs and assessments, there are many niches in which to become involved or to specialize.
Writers are always needed. Clear, clean prose online, on brochures, in memos, and more, are jobs that perpetuate when people need information and knowledge. Any opportunity listed here, is greatly increased if a candidate has skills in writing. Enhancing your writing skills is an ongoing, lifetime, process.
Assessment and location managers will be the people that scout out opportunities. Remote and impoverished areas should be considered, because it is precisely there that local economies can hire local people and provide much needed jobs.
The basic idea of ecotourism is, after all, that people would rather shoot animals with cameras than high powered rifles. It will attract many, many ages and identities, not just elites, or trophy hunting, old guys. Just as oil and coal are products of a by-gone colonizing age, new jobs that invite local thriving are 21st century ones.
Projects and budget supervisors will be needed to figure out all the balance sheets. For some enterprises, a good return on investment, ROI, could begin immediately, for other endeavors, more time is needed to come up with sustainable options of funding, participation, and interest.
Hiking boots on the ground, or in some locations, sandals on the sand, will proliferate as the world spreads out in our human need for connection to new places, human community across borders, local neighborhood resurgence, and our need to protect, defend, both locations and natural resources. If you dream of stopping rhino horn poaching, for example, you can do that from your living room, but also on a gap year in Africa. There is so much more available than just being a safari guide, but that job too, needs people.
There are hidden gems of nature, natural history, museums, national and private parks and more that will proliferate if we are wise and take nature’s call to improve our relationship with such animals as bats, or pangolins.
In your own backyard, or planet,
But we are not limited by protecting exotic places and species. Imagine the rewards of seeing migrating butterflies, or protecting vast American prairies, or forests, for generations to come.
Imagine unlocking young minds through education and participation.
It is not going to happen without intense human intent, and the world without such meaning, inspiration, resources and rewards is an impoverished world we don’t wish to contemplate.
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This post was previously published on Greener Together and is republished here with permission from the author.
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Photo credit: Christyl Rivers