A memoir of conservation, companionship & community
Carol Donaldson
Summerdale Publishers, 2024, 297 pages
Paper back £10.99 ISBN 978-1-83799-327-7
Review by Peter Shirley
Never, it is said, judge a book by its cover, and this could not be more true than in relation to this one. It purports to be about volunteers, indeed that is the title, and appears to be about conservation volunteering. This is something with which I am very familiar, both as an enabler whilst working for the Wildlife Trusts and as a volunteer myself. That expectation is soon dispelled however as it turns out that volunteering is just one of the three main themes, and is the context for the other two which often overshadow it. They are social commentary and the author’s emotional journey through a difficult time in her life.
As a result, rather than a commentary, or a critique of how the conservation world treats its many volunteers, what could be done better and so on, we are treated to a view of the world of volunteering through an emotional prism. That prism has two main facets: general angst and, for a time in the middle of the book, a developing love affair. The underlying theme is the author’s introspective and constant reference to her mental state.
Having been made redundant from her job as a community officer for RSPB reserves, Carol Donaldson takes on what seems to be a similar role for the Kingsdown Partnership, an unnamed County Council’s countryside management partnership somewhere in the south of England. This is immediately after the breakdown of a long-term relationship. Her duties include managing and leading the weekly volunteer tasks, writing management plans, and conducting wildlife surveys.
We are soon pitched into those days of habitat and volunteer management. Pen pictures of the individual volunteers accompany descriptions of their work, their banter, and in many cases their mental struggles. The best days of such countryside management partnerships being over, we also learn of the dereliction of the Portakabin which serves as the office, the unsympathetic, even hostile, management, the impossible workloads, and the lack of funds. All the time though the text oscillates between descriptions of the routine work and conservation tasks, and the participants’, especially the author’s, inner conflicts and angst.
All of this leads perhaps to too much information, and at times to a lack of focus. For example at one point six pages of romantic detail about the author’s developing relationship with one of the volunteers, are followed by four pages about coppicing, before another eight pages about the romance. In another chapter, in relation to the troubles of another volunteer, there is a discussion of the way the justice system treats women.
Various aspects of conservation volunteering are touched upon. Thus we have six reasons for volunteering as proposed by the Volunteer Functions Inventory (an academic research tool): “to act on values important to them; as an opportunity to increase their knowledge of the world and develop or practice skills that might otherwise go unused; to enhance their self-esteem; to cope with inner anxieties and reduce feelings of guilt or inferiority; to gain experience to help their careers; and to be part of a social group.” The book does explore these themes.
There are also comments about broadening the traditionally white middle-class participation in conservation volunteering, and the need for charities to employ a greater proportion of people from ethnic minorities if they want to attract more people as volunteers and supporters. As someone involved in these issues 40 years ago it is disappointing that the world does not seem to have moved on, or is it that the commentators have not noticed?
As for the situation Donaldson finds herself in, I never came across such apparently poor working conditions as she and her volunteers experienced. Even in the days when organisations like the Wildlife Trusts were really strapped for cash (unlike today when they merely think they are) I don’t think we treated people in such a poor way. There is no doubt that a lot of her stress was caused by these conditions.
This is a book of its time. Because of this I may not be the right person to review it. I am of an age and a time when much of what is discussed was for people’s lives outside the organisation. The present day awareness and appreciation of mental health issues and the need to take account of them has radically changed the way managers and organisations need to think and act. It is never quite clear whether the author thinks that volunteering is to help nature, or nature is there to help the volunteers. I guess she thinks of it as a symbiotic relationship of mutual assistance.
My generation was always aware that its people were an organisation’s most important resource. Accordingly we attended to risks, and their health, and safety, and thought ‘job done’. Carol Donaldson’s account of her and her volunteers’ emotional journeys over the course of their volunteering maybe shows that now a more holistic and less hierarchical approach is needed. If this book helps to influence that it should bring wins for nature, organisations, and volunteers. All in all it’s an interesting read, even if at times more like a novel than a narrative.