My name is Evelyn. I am half Paraguayan and half Dominican. I was born in Paraguay and I lived there most of my life. I am currently in Cambridge, UK. I came to Cambridge in October 2020 to do a Master´s Degree in Conservation Leadership. I will return to Paraguay in a couple of weeks, so I am getting ready for this trip at the moment. I started my conservation career in Paraguay six years ago. My expertise is related to protected area management, and project management for ecosystem restoration. I have also contributed to mammal research in the Pantanal and Chaco regions. On the other hand, I am interested in identifying and implementing strategies to make the conditions of our conservation jobs better for us to keep our well-being, considering the high demands of our jobs. I like working at the landscape level and considering all of the elements that interact with each other and affect biodiversity in different ways. I love working with multiple people to plan conservation strategies and implement them. I have learnt about project management along the way, by managing projects. So through this course, I aim to learn about different strategies to improve my project management skills, get ready for my next conservation job and strengthen my network. Outside of work, I like spending time with friends, doing yoga and meditation, spending time outdoors, reading, learning about well-being and gender equality, dancing and just enjoying as much as I can. I very much look forward to meeting you all in the next live sessions!! Abrazos, Evelyn

People working in the conservation sector face multiple complex and relentless challenges every day that are very often outside our control. To be successful in our work, we need to be able to manage demanding workloads with few resources,  deal with constant change, react swiftly and surely at times of crisis, truly understand others and their needs, find creative and transformative solutions, build meaningful relationships and exert positive influence at all levels of society, retain hope and positivity in the face of the significant environmental challenges we face; recognise personal vulnerability and maintain a high level of personal resilience. As a means to better meet these challenges, Fauna & Flora International (FFI) started working on a pilot project to embed mindfulness within the working culture of the organisation. I am undertaking an academic placement as part of the MPhil in Conservation Leadership to generate information that will be complementary to this project. The aim of this placement is to understand the extent to which mindfulness could help to improve conservation leadership and the working culture across the Cambridge Conservation Initiative partners. If you work in conservation and practice mindfulness, I would appreciate it if you could contribute to this project by answering this brief online survey: https://forms.gle/H2z9NF56C8r8po757. If you have any questions, please send an email to the following address: ebb25@cam.ac.uk.