“My area of expertise is climate change,” says Wendy Foden, a world-renowned climate biologist who nearly gave up her work due to the burnout caused by eco-anxiety in the climate science space. PHOTO: Supplied/Wendy Foden
Wendy Foden is a world-renowned climate biologist, and a fighter of climate change. Foden speaks to MatieMedia about eco-anxiety, and about sustainable habits for climate change researchers. “It’s very hard to reconcile what you see on paper and then in your own life – everybody just carrying on,” she says.
Wendy Foden had once considered giving up on her work in one of the most challenging moments of her career.
This moment came when she started to feel overwhelmed by what she was seeing happen to the planet as her climate change research left her with a sense of impending, inevitable doom. The endless images of burning planets, threats that time is quickly running out to change course and the reluctance of world powers to enact meaningful change at a rate any higher than glacial, would leave anyone with a lifetime of fear.
Foden found that specifically for women in the climate science field, the eco-anxiety of this work can be debilitating and result in the choice to leave the work entirely. But Foden, one of the world’s leading experts on climate change and its impacts on the conservation of ecosystems, says that she has found relief that she hopes to teach to others in her field.
“I chair the IUCN climate change specialists group and I’m also sort of leading the organisation on climate change preparedness,” says Wendy Foden, a world renowned climate biologist on her work. PHOTO: Supplied/Wendy Foden
A career in conservation
Foden is an accomplished conservation biologist. She is acting as head of South African National Parks (SANParks) Cape Research Centre, chaired the International Union for the Conservation of Nature’s (IUCN) Climate Change Specialists Group since 2014 and has received the 2020 British Ecological Society’s (BES) Marsh Award for Climate Change Research.
“I actually started out with Physio at Tukkies [University of Pretoria], but that wasn’t going to work out,” says Foden of her journey to the climate science space. “I just didn’t fit into that kind of community,” she says. “But when I was there I joined the exploration expedition society which went to really remote places, either hiking or rafting and having a whole lot of fun. And that’s what sort of got me interested in that kind of career.”
It’s difficult to research the impacts of climate change and feel that you are alone in carrying the burden to solve the crisis, explains conservation biologist Wendy Foden. “It’s actually disturbing. It’s very hard to reconcile what you see on paper and then in your own life – everybody just carrying on,” says Foden. PHOTO: Supplied/Wendy Foden
Foden explains that she had always felt a kinship to nature and immensely enjoys hiking. “I’ve always found my peaceful place in nature,” says Foden.
Despite this, Foden “had no idea you could actually study [ecology] to make a career”.
So the very next year, in 1994, Foden started a Bachelor of Science in botany and zoology at the University of Witwatersrand (Wits), where she was first introduced to ecology. “I didn’t even know ecology existed but it was built into those two courses and it was just a wonderful combination,” says Foden, who completed her degree with distinction in botany in 1996.
In 1997, she did an honours in botany at the University of Cape Town (UCT).
“I was desperate to travel and I thought this was an okay compromise,” explains Foden. After finishing her honours, she took a break to travel, returning to South Africa in 2001. “I realised, okay it’s time to do something useful,” says Foden. In 2002, she completed a master’s in conservation biology at UCT.
It was Foden’s work with Namibian Quiver trees as a masters student that put her on the forefront of climate change research as it was one of the first examples of climate change impacting ecosystems. “It started in the early days when people still didn’t believe in climate change,” says Foden. “And we were trying to convince them that, although you couldn’t see it yet, there were these fingerprints of climate change.”
Foden explains that the research looked at the trees that were dying in some areas and not in others, and found patterns that were a climate change signal.
“But since then it’s become obvious that climate change impacts all over the place,” says Foden.
“We serve the conservation needs and research needs of the park,” says climate biologist Wendy Foden, the head of Cape Research Centre at SANParks. PHOTO: Supplied/Wendy Foden
Women in science and eco-anxiety
It’s difficult to research the impacts of climate change and feel that you are alone in carrying the burden to solve the crisis, explains Foden. “It’s actually disturbing. It’s very hard to reconcile what you see on paper and then in your own life – everybody just carrying on,” says Foden. Working in conservation, where there is so much work to do and so few people to do it, leaves the risk of burnout, explains Foden.
“It’s really not a whole lot of good news and it brings you down […] because you love, you know, nature,” says Foden.
Sitting at a computer without access to nature made up the largest part of being a climate change researcher and it wore her down, leaving her unable to work, explains Foden. It was a “very painful place”, she says.
But she quickly realised that many of her colleagues were going through the same thing. “In many cases, it was typically women who just gave too much,” says Foden. “And it’s a shame because we all are suffering and this is no good for the work we do as a lot of them were dropping out of the field.”
Foden says that this was especially concerning as there are already so few women working in the hard sciences. “Some of my colleagues left to be yoga instructors and housewives. It was tragic how they had to leave for their own survival,” she adds.
“So I said we need something that helps us with this [burnout]. Right now there is no guidance and so I decided to do something about it,” says Foden. “We need a sustainability shift in the way we think.”
Foden started running retreats that brought climate scientists back into nature and now teaches her students with the same philosophy, she explained in a 2018 TedX talk. “But I think there’s a growing need, particularly around climate change,” she adds.
“We need a sustainability shift in the way we think,” says climate biologist Wendy Foden. “In many cases, it was typically women who just gave too much.” PHOTO: Supplied/Wendy Foden
Guiding future researchers to healthier habits
Foden is passionate about her work and about women in the field, dedicating her 2020 BES Marsh Award to women scientists.
“Wendy is an extremely bright woman,” says Kayleigh Murray, a masters student at Stellenbosch University where Foden currently works as an associate professor.
“She really is passionate about nature, and spaces and landscapes. It takes up a lot of our conversations,” says Murray. “Just because it’s studying life, it’s very comprehensive and consuming. It is everything that exists around you.”
Murray credits Foden for making research emotionally sustainable. “The work that we do can be really depressing. And she has a way of being realistic about it while still maintaining humour, lightness and kindness,” says Murray.
“The work that we do can be really depressing. And she has a way of being realistic about it while still maintaining humour, lightness and kindness,” says Kayleigh Murray, a masters student working under Foden at Stellenbosch. PHOTO: Supplied/Wendy Foden