Hi Jessie, you are addressing an important career development theme for conservation professionals, especially early in their career.

It would be easy to say that there is, to some extent, a need to 'ride out' the negativity and prejudice in the early years, and while this is true to some degree, some of these barriers and constraints are so endemic that people can see know a better way through, or in a worst case, choose to leave the profession. My personal view is that people need to learn how to handle this negativity better. If we become 'more professional at being more professional'  (in other words, we carefully learn the skills rather than absorbing insight by osmosis), then we can flush out bad behaviour by others and start to make it dissappear.

I was wondering, do you have approaches which the people that you encounter find very helpful for developing these self-management and inter-personal skills?

Hi Shaleen, it is good to hear about the impact that IndianSnakes is already making.

I was wondering, my work with carnivroe conflict often finds that people can be very tolerant of dangerous animals in their vicincity if a support service is able to quickly respond to an injury (or even death). Is there any parallel with venomous snakes, particulalry in light of the app services you offer in locating support for people injured by the animals?