Photo caption: Lavavolo, Madagascar

You never really know where your career will take you. This week, we talked with Vicki Villanova, someone who switched from conservation genetics with critically endangered Key deer to capacity building internationally with partners in Madagascar.

“Roll with the punches and keep volunteering, even if you find yourself outside of the ideal field that you want to be in.”

Conservation work can be difficult to find and many people may feel discouraged. But it’s important to remember that you’re not the only one who may be struggling or working outside your field. Vicki is someone who can relate to this. After attending graduate school to study conservation genetics, she worked for a human forensics lab for a few years. During this time, she did not give up on her dream to work in conservation. She used this time to expand her network and volunteer at Houston Zoo. Fast forward three years later, Vicki re-entered the conservation world with Omaha’s Henry Doorly Zoo & Aquarium, a role that would allow her to transition to capacity building work with international conservation partners and later work with Conservation Centers for Species Survival.

Anne: Tell me about your background and how you went from genetics to capacity building.

Vicki: I started working in a genetics lab when I was an undergrad at the University of Florida. I had a general interest in genetics, but really an interest in conservation. I landed an internship at the Florida Fish and Wildlife Research Institute in St Petersburg, Florida, and they were doing some really cool stuff with a few species of fish and manatees, as well. When I went back to UF, I joined their Conservation Genetics Lab. At the lab, I became involved in African crocodile research and started working on African dwarf crocodiles specifically. After undergrad I went to the University of Central Florida for my Master’s degree, where I stayed on the genetics route and studied the endangered Florida Key deer, which are an adorable subspecies of white-tailed deer. After grad school, I took a job working in a human forensics lab for a few years in Houston, Texas. During this time, I kept volunteering at the Houston Zoo to stay active in conservation and the zoo community. While working in forensics, I kept my eyes open for conservation jobs and eventually was offered a position at Omaha's Henry Doorly Zoo and Aquarium as a Conservation Genetics Lab Manager. This lab is where I became interested in capacity building. While my job title was Conservation Genetics Lab Manager, a lot more of what I did was grants management and program management outside of the Omaha Zoo. My director at the time, Dr. Ed Louis, has an NGO in Madagascar called the Madagascar Biodiversity Partnership which has over 175 people working in Madagascar. They have four field stations and a central office in Antananarivo, Madagascar's capital. And it is here, with this NGO, that I worked a lot more in capacity building with their accounting team on grant management. Together, we worked on several grants that exceeded $100,000, including two projects co-funded by the European Union.

Capacity building is something that I hope to stay involved with in my new position at the Conservation Centers for Species Survival or C2S2. The C2S2 has a long and proud history of working with zoos, private facilities, and field-based nonprofits to take a One Plan approach to conservation for a wide variety of taxa. Animals, ecosystems, and local communities lose out when we don’t work together. 

Anne: Tell me more about the Madagascar Biodiversity Partnership and what type of conservation work was happening in Madagascar.

Vicki: While I was there, they planted over 7 million trees and had a goal to plant 1 million trees per year. In addition to their reforestation work, they also did lemur monitoring. They studied Northern sportive lemurs, aye-aye, crowned lemurs, black-and-white ruffed lemurs, greater bamboo lemurs, ring-tailed lemurs, and the radiated tortoise. Several of these species don't have a lot of success in captivity so the wild is their only chance for survival. It's important to allow the animals we have in captivity to be the voices for the animals in the wild so we can bring attention to what’s impacting them. 

 A planting event in Kianjavato, Madasgcar.

Anne: Which lessons learned can you share on capacity building that would benefit the wider conservation community?

Vicki: What I learned in the six years during which I was working primarily in field conservation, especially internationally, is that I think we, especially as foreigners, frequently go into other countries and assume we are better equipped for success. But that's not the case at all. You need to listen to your communities and your colleagues and ask them what they need, instead of just assuming. For instance, navigating European Union grants can be quite challenging, even for someone from the US. I was not trained in accounting so collaborating with my colleagues in Madagascar to understand these grants proved to be particularly tough for me. Some trips I would go to Madagascar and teach them some things in Microsoft Excel, but sometimes I’d go over there, and they would teach me an even better way to do something in Excel.

One of the things I was working on with them before I left was getting QuickBooks Online set-up because so many funders require accounting software. However, in a lot of countries, it's really hard to do because of unreliable internet access. For example, we had four field stations, and the office was the only one that could even use QuickBooks because of the requirement for online cloud access, but there are accountants at other field stations that can't get reliable internet. Yet organizations in Madagascar are required to use accounting practices developed in wealthier countries where infrastructure is world’s apart. It's sometimes not even possible to get receipts, quotes, purchase orders, and invoices from small vendors in Madagascar.

I think a lot of the capacity building needs to be more focused on accounting and finance, because local organizations can do the conservation work, but learning how to put together a quote and understand how to budget would make a big impact on local nonprofits in other countries. Improving the financial structure of nonprofits in these countries would make them more attractive to large donors and grants. Seeing the need for improved financial and accounting understanding led me to start my MBA and get a certification in financial analytics.

Anne: What would you say is one of your proudest or most rewarding moments so far in conservation.

Vicki: I think capacity building is something that I've really valued the most. For me, it was before I left that program in Madagascar, it was getting everything moved to QuickBooks. That was a big process between myself and one of the accountants in Madagascar. We worked closely on migrating everything over. We took QuickBooks classes online and explored different software together. It was a great joint effort between the two of us to map out and start the overhaul of the NGO’s financial structure. It was a project I knew would make a lasting impact on the sustainability of the program even after I left. 

Anne: What did you wish that you knew before you started working with partnerships that would be useful to share with others?

Vicki: I think it's a lot of communication and being flexible, especially as I'm looking now with my current organization of Conservation Centers for Species Survival. We’re building relationships with zoos, private facilities and local non-profits all over the world and with different cultures and views, even within the USA. Many times, I host Zoom meetings across time zones. When I was working in Madagascar, sometimes we’d get messages late at night or wake-up to messages. Everyone needs to be flexible on when to communicate and be able to adjust your day so both sides feel like they're an equal partner. And I think that's important, especially when you're working with teams in other countries.

 Vicki with Madagascar Biodiversity Partnership staff at the 2023 IUCN Save our Species

Anne: What would you advise to others who wish to have a similar career to you right now?

Be flexible. I worked in human forensics for three years before I landed on the conservation trajectory. Don't put roots down anywhere for a while. Roll with the punches and keep volunteering, even if you find yourself outside of the ideal field that you want to be in. Try to keep your foot in the door somehow, whether it's volunteering at your local nonprofit or your local zoo or attending conferences. Keep yourself open to new positions and don't give up.

Thank you, Vicki, for sharing your lessons learned with us!

To learn more about the Madagascar Biodiversity Partnership, visit here: https://madagascarpartnership.org/

To learn more about the Conservation Centers for Species Survival, visit here: 

https://www.conservationcenters.org/