From classroom to conservation - Liam Turner

By the time he graduated in 2016, Liam Turner had already gained experience in conducting fieldwork in fish ecology and fur seal ecology. 

Just months after graduation, Liam commenced work with the Gnaraloo Sea Turtle Conservation project, an ambitious 30-year project to survey nesting population and nesting activity trends of three turtle species. 

These turtles are the loggerhead, green, and hawksbills, and they are listed as Vulnerable Endangered, and Critically Endangered respectively by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature. 

During his studies, Liam undertook two conservation internships and started work as an ecologist in 2016. While Liam is proud of this, he’s even prouder to be able to contribute positively to environmental change through science, conservation, and environmental restoration. The combined work and travel is also something he is grateful for. 

While a recent graduate, Liam has the following advice for current students:

"Look within yourself, orientate your whole life towards your passion(s), and live and breathe it. You owe this to your own happiness. Failure doesn’t exist when you do this; it becomes a learning experience. Failure only occurs when you neglect your passion(s) as a result of fear from being judged by those who have neglected theirs, due to that same fear. 

Be true to yourself, and success, great relationships and happiness will follow. In terms of career choices; always choose the challenging road that scares you a little (or a lot), that’s where the personal growth, adventure and story lies, not in the easy road that you are familiar with. No great career or person of inspiration with profound benefit to society was ever forged out of the easy road. 

The courage to act on your passion, coupled with the attitude to support it is everything."