Alumni Spotlight – Stephen Awoyemi
1. What have you been up to since the graduation?
After graduating in August 2014, around December of the same year, I won a grant with the Rufford Foundation to assess the Potentials of Faith-Based Groups in the Conservation of Wildlife Consumed as Bush Meat in Cross River State, Nigeria. In March 2015, I got a job with BirdLife Partner and leading conservation NGO in Nigeria, the Nigerian Conservation Foundation (NCF) as Conservation Policy and Campaigns Officer/Head of Abuja Office. I worked with NCF until April 2017. And then proceeded to do a PhD in Environmental Sciences and Policy, Central European University (CEU) in Budapest, Hungary in September 2018 on a scholarship. I am now in Nigeria doing my field work and will return to Hungary in January 2021 to write my dissertation.
2. Can you tell us a little about what you do?
I love the social dimensions of conservation biology. My work particularly revolves around understanding how humans engage with wildlife from the basis of their belief systems or cultures. This is relevant to my long-time interest in the field of religion and conservation where I have authored some peer reviewed articles and published several policy documents. I am currently compiling abstracts as lead editor in collaboration with other colleagues of a book provisionally titled “Case Studies in the Conservation of Nature through Faith”. I also look at the illegal trade in vultures which I am focusing on for my PhD, especially the sociology of this trade in order to understand how socio-cultural factors shape the behaviour of traders and buyers of vulture parts for belief-based use.
3. You won a recent award, can you tell us about it
Very honoured to have received this prestigious award, the Presidential Scholar Award was established in January 2020 through the Presidential Scholars Fund in order to cultivate leadership potential and recognize outstanding academic achievement at CEU. CEU’s President and Rector Michael Ignatieff and his wife Zsuzsanna Zsohar established the Presidential Scholars Fund.
4. You are the UCCLAN Africa Coordinator, can you tell us how that is going and what you’d like to do with this group?
UCCLAN Africa presents a uniquely advantaged platform that is unrivalled elsewhere in the continent. We are a brain trust of very bright, talented and hardworking conservation professionals. This is what I see when I engage with the group and for me that is immense potential. We (with some members of the wider UCCLAN) are currently working on a policy position statement on the influx of plastic waste by international fossil fuel and chemicals companies into Africa. In terms of the future, we are scoping ideas around setting up working groups to address regional conservation problems. We also consider collaborative writing on topical regional conservation issues to publish in international peer review journals.
5. What do you hope to do next?
The coronavirus has not changed my mantra: keep doing significant things and find avenues to contribute wherever you are. This hopefully will lead me to my next opportunity after my PhD which would be around doing a post doc in conservation social science or working as a policy director in an international NGO.
6. Is there anything you have learned from your studies/career that could be transferrable for other alumni?
It has not been smooth sailing all through. I have managed a chronic disability along with a successful career. The kernel of my story is that whenever I was cleared off my feet by the disability, I stood up again with resolve, looking forward with future consciousness. Resilience is one of the most powerful character traits you can ever cultivate. The rewards are immense, because surely the bad times will come, there is no escaping that. Your ability to bounce back is what counts in life.