To celebrate International Women’s Day 2025, we are excited to share a collection of blog posts showcasing the work of some of the BES community. In each post, they discuss their experiences in ecology, as well as what this year’s theme, ‘Accelerate Action’, means to them.

Dr. Carolyn Kurle
_{Professor, Conservation Biology, University of California San Diego
Lead Editor, Ecological Solutions and Evidence
Author of The Guidance Groove: Escape Unproductive Habits, Trust Your Intuition, and Be True}

I am writing this post for the British Ecological Society’s recognition of International Women’s Day from the standpoint of a conservation biology professor at the University of California San Diego. But I am also speaking to you from the viewpoint of a woman who is privileged to inhabit many roles: mother, author, daughter, sister, aunt, partner, colleague, collaborator, and fellow human.

As a conservation biology professor, the work we do in my lab is geared toward discovering what animals eat and where they spend their time foraging so that we can use those data to inform species and habitat conservation and management actions. We mostly work in marine systems, but we have done plenty of work with terrestrial species as well. Our research is driven by the idea that if we can figure out what a species needs for food and how their food sources or habitat are imperiled by human actions such as climate change, over-fishing, pollution, development, and invasive species, then we can potentially inform the actions required to ameliorate those human-caused damages.

I also encourage the students I work with as a professor at UCSD to learn compassion for themselves and others and I teach them tools to quiet their anxious minds so they can more effortlessly lean into their truest, most authentic selves. In my teaching, I try and help my students recognize how their wild and perfect selves can be in direct alignment with nature, how they are nature. Framing ecological teachings through that inclusive lens, and helping them see that caring for themselves and each other is part of protecting Earth’s wildness, allows for a greater willingness by my students to be better stewards of the Earth.

I got into ecology because I loved spending time in nature as a child, camping and exploring the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. I still go hiking with my son once a year for many days in Mt. Rainier National Park in Washington state. Being immersed in the green forests along the base of the mountain with the Douglas fir trees, the ferns, mosses, wildflowers, meadows, marmots, mountain goats, deer, grouse, Steller’s jays, and chipmunks as we hike the familiar trails fills me up with the many positive metrics of well-being we know are linked to exposure to nature.

As a child, I wanted to understand how nature was so perfectly put together, seemingly without interference from humans, and why time in nature felt so peaceful and like home for me. As a grown-up conservation ecologist, I now know that humans are an integral part of “nature” (see Kurle et al. 2023 in ESE) and those “natural” places I adore are constantly experiencing multiple onslaughts of human interference. I continue in my scientific work so I can try and understand how the components of a well-running ecosystem come together in exactly the right ways, why immersion in those components brings about a deep connection and ease for humanity, what happens to those ecosystems when they are thrown off-kilter by disturbance, especially human-caused perturbation, and how we might contribute to fixing those disturbances.

In general, I am inspired by almost everyone. The people on this Earth are doing their best to be their best selves and I am constantly marveling at the earnest efforts of the undergraduates I work with at UCSD, the willing kindness and enthusiasm of the teenagers with whom my son attends high school, the hard work and effort put forth by the people in my community who run the grocery stores and gas stations, fix the streets and deliver the mail, and do their best to govern with integrity.

Specifically, I’m deeply inspired by people who are comfortable being their most authentic selves and who create the space to invite others to do the same. People like Dr. Martha Beck who, among other things, contributes her teachings, time, and financial resources to restoring wild spaces like the Londolozi Game Reserve in South Africa while also working with that Reserve’s wildness to heal and transform humans into their most authentic selves as they spend time learning with her in nature’s effortlessly healing space. Or the poet, Andrea Gibson, who evokes what it means to be love on this planet, using the most exquisite words that manage to overcome the limitations of language as she helps us to better understand each other and what it means to navigate the world as our most natural selves. Or Tricia Hersey, an activist and writer who reminds us that allowing ourselves to rest when we are tired is a form of resisting the societal story that we must constantly be “doing something useful” and that the simple act of loving ourselves and each other can disrupt the status quo and contribute to our alignment with “being natural.”

When we can see ourselves and each other as equal aspects of nature and we frame our attention through lenses of love, inclusion, honor, kindness, and acceptance, then we can experience a deeper peace, much like what we experienced when we were children immersed in our favorite wild, feral, and most natural nature-scapes. And with that deeper peace and ease that arises when we live in alignment with our most authentic and nature-inspired selves, comes an effortless willingness to open the doors of learning to everyone, regardless of their gender-identification.