Looking to the future: Building resilience in the environmental sector through education training and green skills
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By Rebecca Duncan, Media & Events Lead
This is the final article as part of The Rivers Trust’s partnership with the Countryside Jobs Service. Throughout our posts, we have tried to give an insight into the variety and impact of our work. Now, as we conclude this series, it’s an appropriate moment to turn our gaze to the future.
We often emphasise how wild, healthy, natural rivers are an essential component of, and play a part in sustaining, a more nature-positive and climate-resilient future for all. Every organisation in the private sector, public sector and charity sector has a role to play in facilitating that future.
The Rivers Trust’s primary role is to be a delivery-focused organisation making real environmental improvements on the ground. Working with nature to restore rivers and catchments, democratising data and campaigning for change, and working closely with partners are all essential components in what we do.
But if we are going to accelerate and upscale this work, we need to ensure we have the right people to do it, both within and outside our organisation. It is now widely acknowledged that the gap in skills and limited capacity for nature-based green jobs is one of the biggest barriers to achieving national climate and nature goals, including reaching net zero CO2 emissions. Practical ecological skills - those that drive The Rivers Trust’s work and purpose - are of utmost concern. It’s therefore vital The Rivers Trust takes responsibility for addressing the challenge in order to continue our work restoring catchments, working with businesses to reduce their environmental impacts, or connecting communities through the power of nature.
A 2023 report1 by the Chartered Institute of Ecology and Environmental Management (CIEEM) and Lantra articulates the problem in no uncertain terms:
- There is a capacity crisis and skills gap in the sector
- There is an overreliance on volunteering
- Ecology-based jobs are unappealing compared to other sectors due to factors such as low pay and lack of clear progression
- There is confusion about vocational qualifications
- The capacity crisis is unquantified
- The sector needs better leadership from government and large public sector bodies to promote green skills and green jobs
If you’re reading this article, it’s unlikely this is news to you and it’s not news to us. That’s why we’re taking action to encourage and empower more bright, brilliant people to develop their skills in the sector, from our outreach work in primary schools to facilitating work placements and traineeships for adults looking to kickstart their environmental careers.
One of the key touch points of the capacity problem identified by CIEEM and Lantra is in higher education. It has become the norm for job specifications to include a university degree, but common courses like geography or environmental science are not providing graduates with sufficient practical skills such as land management or species identification. These graduates often have to do a large amount of volunteering or unpaid work experience to even be considered for a job. Many graduates of course cannot afford to take on unpaid roles, so the overreliance on volunteering then limits the diversity of potential candidates.
It is clear, then, that more practical and vocational pathways should be opened up for those looking for environmental jobs. The Rivers Trust movement has recognised this and is exploring opportunities for employment and training facilitated by our corporate partnerships.
.jpg "A person wearing a Mersey Rivers Trust cap looks into a specimen pot from a water sample on the edge of a river")
Recent funding from the Bentley Environmental Foundation has enabled Mersey Rivers Trust to host two six-months traineeships, providing invaluable work experience whilst also paying the real living wage. Sophie Jennings and Amara Coombes have joined the Trust as Water Quality Trainee and Farm Advice Trainee respectively. Both Sophie and Amara have been fully immersed in the operations of a local Rivers Trust, with water quality testing, delivering citizen science training, discussing nature-friendly farm interventions, and community engagement just a few aspects of their multifaceted roles. The six-month traineeships have now been extended and Mersey Rivers Trust is exploring opportunities to fund them into 2025, demonstrating the positive impact the traineeships have had on both the individuals and the organisation. We recently caught up with Sophie and Amara to get their perspective on the traineeships and the challenges of building a career in the environment sector.
When we asked them what they’re most enjoying about their roles, both Sophie and Amara emphasised the hands-on elements of their work, getting to travel across the Mersey catchment and learning new skills which contribute to meaningful projects. We also asked whether their traineeships have helped them gain work experience in the sector where they might otherwise have struggled, to which both answered with a categorical yes. Amara said: “this traineeship has…offered me practical, hands-on experience that would have been difficult to obtain otherwise. The variety of tasks and projects has allowed me to build a diverse skill set and a network of contacts within the industry, significantly enhancing my employability in this field.”
She added: “While my undergraduate degree provided a basic understanding of environmental science, it did not cover the practical, hands-on aspects of river management and ecological restoration that I have learned during my traineeship. Despite efforts from my university to provide more hands-on experience to students, due to carrying out my degree during the Covid-19 pandemic this was not very successful.” These responses align with CIEEM’s report and resonate with anyone working in eNGOs, where the intense demands on funding and capacity leave little room for training inexperienced recruits.
Whilst it’s important to examine how further education and vocational courses provide pathways into environmental careers, we need to look further still – or further back, to be precise.
The seeds for the passion and drive required to succeed in the environment sector are often sown at a young age. The national school curriculum – at primary and secondary level – should be scrutinised accordingly. When asked if she felt she learned enough about rivers and the environment at school, Amara said: “I remember learning about rivers in high school geography, which was good, but other habitats need to be taught at school as well, such as heaths and peat bogs, and how they all link together. We have a wonderful variety of habitats in the UK that we do not learn about, so we do not understand the value of them unless you are actively interested in it and learn about it on your own.”
Whilst an overhaul of the national curriculum to include more on nature and the environment would be ideal, The Rivers Trust and other eNGOs can work with schools and local authorities to help plug that gap now. Engaging children with rivers and the environment isn’t just important for our future recruitment needs, but gives children vital access to the outdoors in one of the world’s most nature-depleted countries2.
A wonderful example of this is Westcountry Rivers Trust’s SuDS 4 Schools project. Targeted at Key Stage 2, the project focuses on sustainable drainage systems (SuDS) which offer a natural alternative to traditional drainage methods like pipes and sewers. The main aim of the project is to show that more sustainable and natural processes can be introduced to slow the flow of water, filtering and cleaning as it does so. Over two years, sessions involved active elements including a demonstration of water infiltration and a Puddle Hunt where the children showed Westcountry Rivers Trust staff around the playground and school grounds, marking on a map where puddles often formed. This informed the Trust’s plans for installing interventions such as water barrels, attenuation planters and a rain garden.
Both teachers and students have thoroughly enjoyed these sessions, and the school management team now sees the clear benefit of SuDS being installed. The students have been able to develop a hands-on understanding of the relationship between drainage, water management, and flooding, and have been actively involved in Westcountry Rivers Trust’s work to improve flood resilience across Devon and Cornwall.
These case studies represent a small sample of the astounding education and engagement work taking place across the Rivers Trust movement. In 2023-24 alone we worked with more than 20,000 volunteers and upwards of 33,000 schoolchildren, and we are constantly considering how we can provide more, and better, training opportunities.
As we round off our series of partnership articles for CJS, this is a good parting message: for our environment to be resilient, our sector needs to be resilient. Each of us must take responsibility for looking after ourselves, our colleagues, and the environmental stewards of the future.
Thanks for reading!
Please contact The Rivers Trust via email with any queries
Footnotes
1 CIEEM and Lantra: Opening Up Vocational Pathways Into Nature-Based Green Jobs
2 Sky News: Biodiversity: UK is one of world's most nature-depleted countries, new data finds
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