12 February 2016

Refugees, conservation and science in one job

Andrea Dekrout’s job tackles two of the biggest issues the world is worried about right now – the refugee crisis and environmental conservation.

The former Greymouth High School student is an Environment Officer for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the UN agency tasked with ensuring respect for the rights of people fleeing war and persecution and finding lasting solutions to their plight.

Based in Geneva, Andrea’s job is to help ensure sustainable environmental management in UNHCR operations and refugee camps, helping UNHCR’s mandate to protect refugees by providing a clean and healthy environment and the protection of the host communities they rely on.

“I travel a lot to provide on-the-ground technical support and situation analysis, so tasks vary depending on the location and nature of the refugee response,” says Andrea.

“In all cases, my job is to help mainstream good environmental management into whatever is happening on the ground. I really enjoy working with the refugee and host communities to help make sure their environmental concerns are addressed.”

Andrea has Bachelor and Masters degrees in science, majoring in biological sciences from the University of Waikato, and a PhD from Auckland University.
Diverse fields, different countriesAndrea’s road to the UN has seen her working with cheetahs in Botswana and disadvantaged communities in Papua New Guinea.

In Botswana she worked on a “critter-cam” project with National Geographic, putting camera collars on cheetahs to learn about their behaviours, and in Papua New Guinea she worked with extremely disadvantaged communities on atoll islands to improve their land use for more sustainable farming and to protect their access to water.

Andrea says the general and specialised knowledge she picked up throughout her studies at Waikato helped her get to where she is.

“Waikato’s promotion of general science studies over early specialisation, especially in undergraduate, gave me a wide range of general knowledge which is especially useful when something random comes up and suddenly an ecologist like me needs to provide sound advice on erosion control or water pollution.”

Over the next few years Andrea says she’d like to continue her work at the intersection of conservation, development and humanitarianism.

“My work is so rewarding, but challenging too. Working in different countries requires you to adapt to cultural and social contexts of new places – which can take time. Working in developing countries puts up logistical and practical constraints for transport, communications and access to resources that you would never encounter in Western settings. But it all adds to the interest.”

ends

© Scoop Media