Alumni story Joep Crombag

Natuurmonumenten is one of the biggest nature conservation organisations of the Netherlands. It buys, protects and manages nature reserves in the Netherlands and cultural heritage in nature. Their aim is to preserve nature for future generations. "Although I am a recent graduate, I am allowed and encouraged to work on ‘big’ topics and policies that have a real impact”. He works with actors like Staatsbosbeheer, LVVN (Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries, Food Security and Nature), ARK Rewilding, Free Nature and the VBNE.

Variation of projects

One of the projects Joep worked on so far is the shaping of the avian influence strategy of Natuurmonumenten. Avian influenza kills a lot of wild birds in The Netherlands, and he helped to find a way to cope with that. Another ongoing project is the new meadowbird strategy of Natuurmonumenten, which Joep is part of. “Next to this, I helped designing our guidelines on the protection of livestock against wolves, which I am quite proud of”.

Study and specialisation

In his study career, Joep did the Bachelor program of Forest and Nature Conservation (BBN) with the specialization of Ecology and Management and the Master track in Management in the Master Forest and Nature Conservation (MFN). “MFN sometimes felt like a repetition form the stuff I learned during BBN, so I would recommend people to maybe choose another master if they did BBN or to expand the standard MFN curriculum with a minor. I created my own minor ‘Environmental Law and Policy’ which I really liked”. In his job, the ecological knowledge gathered during his program and internship were most important, alongside critical and analytical thinking.

Volunteering to get ahead

For his internship, Joep was part of ARK Rewilding where he studied habitat selection by red deer, wild boar and roe deer in natural areas. During his study, he did quite some volunteering with Natuurmonumenten (as a voluntary forester), Staatsbosbeheer (as chairman of the Youth Council), the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (as a research assistant), and Rewilding Europe (as part of the young rewilders). “This volunteering helped me discovering what type of work I like and helped to build my network and contributed to give a head start in comparison to other recent graduates.” Another advice of him to increase your chances for a position is to translate your CV, which he found was greatly appreciated by Dutch employers.

“I did not know what I wanted to do, but I believe it is more important to know what kind of field and topics you like. My recommendation: volunteer to discover what you like and create a LinkedIn profile and follow people you think are interesting.”