In this Notes From The Field blog, Project Coyote’s new Carnivore Conservation Director, Nadia Steinzor, describes the childhood experiences that inspired her eventual career in wildlife conservation and environmental protection.
Throughout her professional life, Nadia has advocated for the well-being of non-human and human communities. For over a decade at Earthworks, she exposed how the oil and gas industry harms air, water, the climate, and public health and leveraged that information to achieve state and federal policy reform and justice for frontline residents. Before joining Project Coyote, Nadia was working as a consultant on projects to hold industrial polluters accountable under U.S. environmental laws and with the Rewilding Institute to protect wolves and the habitat they need to survive.
Her message of coexistence is inspiring, as is her lifelong dedication to environmental protection. We hope you enjoy learning a bit more Nadia and her thoughtful approach to wild carnivore policy.
-Camilla Fox, Founder and Executive Director of Project Coyote
Notes From The Field blog: Learning to Respect and Connect
Nadia Steinzor, Carnivore Conservation Director
The buck was hanging upside down, and from my seven-year-old vantage point, it was huge. I took in its glassy eyes and curving antlers—and suddenly it clicked. I understood that a beautiful, singular animal was the source of the venison I devoured. Maybe that’s also when I realized that the streams and woods where I simply played were the homes that many creatures needed to survive.
My childhood was a fortunate, multi-layered back-and-forth between New York City’s bustling human diversity and the Catskill Mountains’ peaceful natural diversity. In both realms, my parents advocated respect and curiosity, pressing my sister and me to ask questions, be humble in the face of differences, and consider the impacts of our actions.
Such values have been the connecting themes in both my personal and professional lives. I’ve worked on a number of different yet connected issues: advancing women’s education and reproductive health, reining in climate pollution from the fossil fuel industry, and protecting open space and wildlife. All of these issues are tied to securing rights for people and animals trying to survive in the face of harm, and the need for accountability by those causing the harm.
Twenty years ago when I was trying to decide whether to pursue environmental policy work, I was walking through the National Zoo in Washington DC and came upon the wolf enclosure. One of its inhabitants gazed deeply at me with what seemed like questioning eyes, and I knew that it was time to stop pondering and start acting.
Too many people fear and revile carnivores like wolves, coyotes, bobcats, and mountain lions without understanding their true natures. Neither do they realize how much we owe them for shaping and maintaining balanced, healthy environments. I’m excited to now be working for Project Coyote, a leader in changing human perspectives and behavior to foster appreciation and respect for our wild neighbors.
I have such good fortune to live surrounded by trees and birdsong and to be sustained by clean air and water. But it’s heartbreaking to witness our precious planet reeling from the twin environmental crises of climate change and biodiversity loss, largely because of the development and consumption choices that a rapidly growing number of humans have made. It’s never been more vital to give wildlife the respect, space, and protection they deserve and need to survive long into the future—for their sakes and ours.
