Rewilding your career: Jenny's story

No such thing as bad weather, only bad clothing I tell myself, eyes wandering through to the torrent outside.

I’m at Staunton Country Park, meeting with Ranger, Jenny, in the beautiful stable-convert-café, a vision of varnished green timber and constellations of twinkling yellow lights this time of year. When the door thumped open, I knew it would be Jenny, no one else was brave enough to be out in this.

She de-waterproofed, sorted herself a cup of coffee, and sat. Interrogations could begin.

“You’re in a documentary…” I started “…it’s about people who are on the frontline of the biodiversity and climate crisis, and the audience wonders ‘who is this person, how did they get there, and why are they so special – why them?’ What do you say to them?”

Alive. That’s the word I’d use to describe Jenny. She was very grounded. Switched on, eyes open, ears taut. You could hear her think carefully, genuinely, before each response. (For practical reasons, it is also much easier interviewing someone who is alive.)

Jenny’s life didn’t begin in neon waterproofs, stomping round country parks - she studied French at University and subsequently worked in the sector.

The fifteen years that followed were spent in a string of different office-based jobs. Gesturing to the smoke alarm on the wall, she tells me their manufacturer is just down the road, where eight of these fifteen years were spent working. “It just wasn’t sustainable though” she tells me, hinting that perhaps, deep down, she knew she was going to do something else.

“Every year me and my partner would holiday in Scotland. Last year (2022*) it was the Isle of Skye…”.

At just 1.66km2, the Isle of Skye is huddled amongst the Inner Hebrides archipelago, a Nordic landscape of biological spires and pikes, where Eagles and Stags lord the hills.

“We stopped on the way home in a cozy pub somewhere up North, and a combination of the holiday and a few beers persuaded me that this was what I needed to do”.

This referring to being outdoors. Being within the outdoors, in all its visceral (and today, wet) glory.

 “I’ve got a real affinity with trees especially. It started during Covid. My husband likes the coast, that’s his place, but mine is amongst the trees. I just love it.”

“Is there anything about trees in particular?” I probe.

 “Um… I mean there are nice views in a forest, I guess. It just feels good. A bit like the feeling you get when the sun hits your face.”

I probe Jenny as to whether she thinks her love for nature could have roots in how it affects her mental or physical health.

“I mean it just is what it is. I’ve not figured it out… and I don’t want to figure it out.”

Now that resonated.

As humans, we spend an unfathomable amount of time trying to understand, to probe, to translate things to our linear, simplistic 2D brains, just as I’m doing right now. “Why do you feel better in nature?” “How do you feel better in nature?” But should I be? Is the beauty of nature, and our achingly complex relationship with it beautiful, simply because it is simple? You don’t question why you love your family; you just do. So why does nature need some explanation or excuse? Surely it’s just a part of criteria to be human, or at least it should be.

Midlife-crisis-level questioning raging, Jenny continues, explaining it’s the fact that she’s simply outdoors where she likes to be, as opposed to any profound reasoning or motive. “I respect activists and campaigners, but I’m not one of them.” Jenny confesses - simply someone who adores nature; is pulled to it. Which I think is almost as inspiring.

Must we all be Chris Packham’s and Greta Thunberg’s? Gluing yourself to a train or writing a book on the horrors of Climate Change doesn’t have to be part of the contract when you’re “into” nature. There shouldn’t be a contract, you can simply be interested in it. Your second nature.

Back to Jenny’s story though. Fortunately, it didn’t end in that cozy pub.

“I had to tell my husband the plan, to work outdoors, as a way of cementing my thoughts. Of course, when the booze wore off, I did chicken out, but I’d been friends with Kate (another Ranger at our country park) for years prior and asked her for advice on what I should do.” I mmm’ed to reinforce my interest, scribbling away. “She told me [to “rewild my career” perhaps] that the two main things were to get my tickets and volunteer.”

(“Tickets” in the conservation Dictionary, refer to your licenses. Not your driving or alcohol-selling license, better. A license to work a chainsaw, perhaps to mimic the felling actions of large herbivores, or to hold a Dormouse in the palm of your hand. Since our interview, Jenny has got her tree-felling ticket.

Volunteering meanwhile harks back to the adage of “I can’t get experience without work, but I can’t get work without experience”. And in a practical, dexterous role such as a Ranger, volunteering is essential, to properly ground yourself, mentally and physically in the field.)

And so, this is where Jenny started. Volunteering at the Country Park for Kate and the Rangers - murdering brambles and coppicing Hazel, just as the extinct Auroch would’ve done, all in return for tea and biscuits.

After several months, she was offered a job as a part-time Ranger. Murdering brambles and coppicing Hazel, only now getting paid.

Additionally, Jenny landed herself an apprenticeship program with the Forestry Commission, to give her a grounding in working in wooded landscapes especially.

I ask her about it, and after she assures me “It’s not all exciting conservation”, proceeds to list off her recent days at work, from unearthing an arrowhead (the Game of Thrones production team had been filming in her woodland – of course!), to searching Dormice and roosting Bats.

The conservation sector is a discombobulating one to take the plunge with. But, speaking to me about her plans to upskill and train in the hopes of landing a full-time job, Jenny seems to genuinely “get it”. Thus, I feel she’d be a suitable candidate for “the big question”.

“Do you think we’re going to be able to solve the biodiversity crisis we’re in now?”. 

A moment of thought passes before “Yes… I do.”

She talks of the power of young people, how despite depressing news headlines, we must remain positive, and practical ways of solving it, like the Donut Economy. The Donut Economy referring to an economic model for an environmentally friendly future. While our current one revolves around the idea of eternal growth and linearity of GDP, the Donut Economy looks at rejuvenation, a cyclical and holistic view of everything from communities to natural systems, not dissimilar to the cyclical nature of a rewilded landscape, constantly rejuvenating and repurposing.

“I do think we’ll get there eventually. It’s just will the timescales be good enough”.

I thank Jenny for her time and mull over everything she’s said to an ambience of rumbling thunder and rustling raincoats. The last of the Swifts fly mournfully skywards.

What an inspiration though, both in her knowledge of the sector, wildlife, and life in general. Truly an example of how it’s never too late to change what you do, and someone who had truly rewilded their career.

For more information/any questions you may have about this interview, please get in touch via the contact page.