I don’t want to be writing this, but unfortunately this is happening. Around the country, champions of conservation are losing their livelihoods. Last week, I became one of them. 

My love for the James River started in high school. I knew Richmond’s river was pretty, I knew I enjoyed sunsets from its vantage points, but I didn’t understand it. When my biology teacher first mentioned the James River Association and the field trip we would be going on I was excited, but I had no idea that my life was about to change forever. 

We boarded JRA’s pontoon boat for Presquile National Wildlife Refuge and that was it, I was hooked. That same teacher had taught us all about Virginia’s birds including visual and audial identification and the 30 minute or so ride to the island was packed with cormorants, pelicans, osprey, and even eagles! We ran a few trawl nets and brought up various fish species, then docked to explore the island a bit before everyone made dinner. Did I mention this was an overnight trip? Hiking, canoeing, plant ID, then a bit of clean up and suddenly it was time to leave the best place I had ever visited. I talked my parents’ (and anyone else that would listen) ears off about the trip, the staff I’d met, and how much I loved every second.

The rest of high school and even once as a chaperone in college, I thought about this incredible place just a few river miles south of Richmond and went any time the opportunity arose. All through college, I babbled on and on about how I, Jordan, would work for this incredible organization one day. 

In my last semester of college, I applied for the water quality monitoring intern position and got it. I was elated! College hadn’t been easy for me and I was finally going back to something that felt positive and sunny. 

I was working part time as a bartender, part time as a member of the new generation of environmental defenders. I had the most patient boss who answered about a hundred questions a week in my first month and I quickly learned about water quality testing and reporting. I met dedicated volunteers that handled the data collection week to week. I saw my first river otter and proclaimed that someone’s ferret had gotten loose as my volunteer team that day cackled at me before gently correcting me. I forced every person in the office to talk to me and we shared hard news as well as laughter that summer. As the end of my internship neared, JRA asked if I wanted to stay an extra month just to learn some other skills from differing teams. “Absolutely!!”

Enter: the restoration team. I met Amber early in my internship. She was quirky, always up for a laugh, and artsy in the way nature creates. A human made out of unwavering determination and sunshine. Then I met Joey and Anne Marie right as my internship was ending, they were yin and yang with their strengths in the field and I kept volunteering because of how they taught their skills to others. No question was too silly, no error was too hard to fix. 

Covid made it hard to continue to volunteer as I was trying to work as much as possible in my random, odd jobs I had collected. We lost contact for a time. 

In 2024, a friend I knew at Conservation Legacy shared a job posting on their LinkedIn. I clicked it, it sounded like an incredible opportunity and there was that organization again: James River Association. And it was on Amber’s team! I had been applying and interviewing for jobs in my field for going on two years at that point so the doubt that I would get it gripped me throughout the process. 

Interview day came, I met the two new additions to the restoration team since I had been gone and they were absolutely incredible. We laughed through the whole call, and I felt at ease when we hung up rather than the typical nerves. It had felt like a conversation over coffee rather than the typical rigid interview I was used to. I couldn’t believe that one team was made up of purely wonderful humans. 

My first week then month came and went. This was happening, I, Jordan, worked for the James River Association. A PAID position with that organization I fell in love with in high school. I was wading through thorns and mud with half the team, maintaining already planted riparian forest buffers and finding adorable bugs every visit. Then I was in meetings, helping at James River Consortium events, and getting trusted to plan events for the coming spring with the other half. I was researching outreach strategies and planning the best route of attack to get buffers on more rural properties of Central Virginia, thinking about what local businesses may want to host an outreach event for us, and even prepping to interview successful projects’ landowners to get the word out in a more humanizing way. Suddenly every time I traveled, my new phrase was “hm, this could use a buffer”. 

Finding out that my job is no longer, right as I was gearing up to execute everything I had been coordinating throughout the winter was devastating. I was mere weeks away from these various projects beginning, I couldn’t believe it. I don’t want to be writing this, I don’t want this to be happening, but how lucky am I to be so tear stained and have enjoyed A JOB so much. 

Because no environmental work is just a job, it’s a mission. It’s a promise to future generations. It’s something that every single human should be able to stand behind the importance of. We are nature. When we don’t care for it, when we destroy it, when we freeze the funding that was for conservation projects, we are hurting ourselves and our fellow beings. What could possibly be worth that.