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A Day in the Life of a Conservation Project Officer: Iris Cosgrove on Guarding the Green

Have you wondered what it’s like to work in conservation, or what a conservation project officer actually does? As a Conservation Volunteers Australia project officer, Iris Cosgrove spends each day working towards an important mission. That mission is guarding the green, aka working to restore and conserve our incredible biodiversity and ecosystems in Australia.

Iris’s office is a little unconventional: she spends much of her time without the confines of four walls as she actively spends time outdoors to restore and protect nature in Australia.

Each day brings something new. Working for an pan-Australian nonprofit organization alongside passionate volunteers, Iris works hard to restore, protect, and give back to the land and Country.

Iris starts each work day early at around 6am, when the bees and birds start to wake up. Her work days are filled with getting her hands dirty in the soil, and working with passionate volunteers who want to make a real difference.

Find out more below as we journey into the daily life of a conservationist with Iris.

The Makings of a Conservationist: Rooted in the Land

There are several different study and career paths that can lead to becoming a conservationist. Iris studied land management and grew up with a family who worked on the land as dairy farmers.

Iris watched her grandfather practice traditional land management techniques like water divining and cool burnings. This foundational relationship with the Earth and land naturally led her towards a career in conservation and shaped her practical, respectful approach to ecosystems.

“What drew me to conservation work was a pure love of the land,” Iris shares. “I always worked on our local creek—weeding and doing bits to improve our local area.”

Long before joining CVA, conservation was a way of life for Iris.

Iris first started working for CVA back in 2008 after volunteering with CVA for 5 years. 18 years on, and she’s gone from being one of the first CVA volunteers in Gladstone, to being a Project Officer and managing large-scale conservation projects.

A Day In The Life of a Conservation Project Manager

Iris is passionate about her job in conservation. Her advice for anyone considering working in nature conservation is to step right in.

“Please do it, we need more people doing the right thing not taking but giving back”, says Iris.

Choosing your career path requires you to visualise what that career will actually be like on a daily basis. Below you can journey with Iris on a typical day saving the planet.

Iris spends about 3 days a week in the bush with the remainder of her time being dedicated to admin and project planning. Here’s what a typical day for Iris looks like:

🌳 6:00 AM: Prepping for a Day out in the Bush

A typical day for Iris begins with early morning logistics. By 6:30 AM, she is running “pre-starts” which involves checking equipment, ensuring safety compliance, and loading up the CVA vehicle with the day’s essential tools: shovels, mattocks, and loppers.

From there, she drives out to the project site, which could be anything from a riverbank, reserve or a local wetland.

🌳 09:00 AM – Coordinating Conservation Volunteers

By mid-morning, the volunteers arrive. While Iris works with corporate groups and students at times, her regular, dependable heartbeat of volunteers consists of dedicated locals over the age of 60.

“The volunteers are the best part of the job,” Iris says. “Meeting people with the same interest and realizing they are right there to support us is incredible.”

Before anyone picks up any tools, Iris gathers the volunteers for sign-ons and a comprehensive safety briefing. Because her regular teams are highly experienced, the morning brief focuses heavily on checking in. “We talk about the site safety, what the day will look like, what we’re doing, and honestly—how everyone is feeling.”

Iris’s field kit essentials

These are things that she never leaves home without:

  • water 🚰
  • phone 📱
  • first aid supplies 🩹
  • a smile 😊

Hands in the Dirt: Changing It Up

Whether the day calls for bush regeneration, tree planting, or waterway work, Iris keeps the goals clear.

“It’s much the same at its core,” she explains. “If there’s weeds, we get them out. If there’s rubbish, we remove it. But we try to do a variety of things to change it up for the volunteers.”

Managing a site requires a dual mastery of both technical land skills and people management. Motivation is rarely an issue out here. “The volunteers want to be there,” Iris notes. “They genuinely want to do their best for the environment.”

Iris has championed our local ToadBusters season for over a decade in Gladstone removing Cane Toads from local fresh water dams and catchments. Working with Scout groups Iris holds monthly ToadBusting nights over the summer months.

The Fitzroy Gully Erosion Control project ran for multiple years where Iris and volunteers would work with private landholders often staying on farms and build porous check dams from rocks and wire netting and plant thousands of trees to reduce the amount of fine sediment the Great Barrier Reef and precious top soil loss.

Caring for the Curtis Coast had Iris and the volunteers doing marine debris clean ups right across the Gladstone region often removing over 100kgs of litter from our waterways and beaches each day while also rehabilitating areas of sand dunes damaged by flooding and dune drivers protecting turtle nesting habitat.

Iris also volunteers each year to do turtle monitoring and will go over to stay on remote QLD islands to provide essential data of nesting marine turtles.

Handling Curveballs

When weather, wildlife, or site conditions throw a curveball, Iris keeps a positive outlook. “Usually there’s an upside! We either get to do something out of the ordinary, or we take a well-deserved break.”

The bush brings plenty of surprises, too—like the day a wild bird decided to use Iris’s head as a temporary landing pad. Iris recalls this as one of the funniest and most unexpected on-the-job moments.

A Lesson on Resilience

Like all jobs, there are ups and downs, and challenges along the way. The work can be physically demanding. Perhaps subconsciously mimicking nature, Iris has a resilience mindset.

When asked about an early lesson that shaped her career, Iris recalls a literal roadblock. “I’ve made lots of mistakes that helped me along the path. Once, I got the vehicle bogged on a beach. People would come along with heaps of advice. It taught me that listening to people is a genuinely good lesson.”

That willingness to listen and remain approachable is exactly how Iris builds rapid rapport with brand-new volunteers. “Just be friendly and listen,” she says.

Reflections On 10 Years Working In Conservation

It’s a remarkable feat for anyone to dedicate 10 years of their career to one organisation. For Iris, however, the true reward of her work with CVA is measured by the impact she’s had on nature and the environment.

“The most rewarding part is looking back on past project sites and seeing the trees ten years on,” Iris reflects. “Just knowing we’ve built a habitat, and it’s still standing there thriving.”

It’s a legacy she hopes to pass on to the next generation. Some of her favorite memories involve seeing young children out on site, enthusiastically planting tree after tree.

A Call to Action for the Earth

Iris wishes more people understood the critical value of keeping our earth green, biodiverse, cool, and protected.

Iris encourages anyone keen on embarking on a career in conservation to take part in building back biodiversity in Australia and protecting our incredible ecosystems.

As for Iris? After a long, physically demanding day in the wetlands, she heads home to do what she loves most to unwind: having a quiet cup of tea, reflecting on the day, and thinking, thank goodness for the help of the volunteers.

🌿 Want to be an Australian Conservationist Too?

Inspired by Iris’s story? We welcome you to share your own conservation stories with us on our social media channels.

We hope that Iris’s story has inspired you to consider a career in conservation, or to dedicate a few hours or a few days to making a tangible difference by volunteering with CVA.

Join a CVA project near you and help us keep our habitats thriving for the next ten years and beyond.