Adjany Costa Quotes

....there is this conception about conservation that you have to focus on one thing and stay with that until you die. I think that is a misconception, especially if you want to push forward change and contribute to the improvement and application of policies, because if you only have field experience then you won’t be able to bring that into influencing policymakers.

The best part is meeting people from all over who, like me, travel all over the world and never really feel like they belong somewhere.

If it’s to that point where you think you want to do it and it feels right but other people are telling you not to, just do it. No matter what obstacle you think might stop you, when you wake up in the morning just say “I’m doing it.”

Motivation helps, but if you are not disciplined, if you are not focused and have no goal, it is very difficult to keep going.

The best part of my job is being able to include the environment in topics that most people think are completely unrelated.

I hear in the U.S. that women don’t have the same opportunities or the same paycheck as men. Where I’m from it’s worse because women have the same opportunities and paycheck, they’re just led to believe that their opportunities are limited. Helping them understand that they can do whatever they want, that there’s nothing wrong if they want to be a housewife. But there’s also nothing wrong if they want to push the boundaries and do something else.

Drylands are extremely important not just for the survival of biodiversity but also for us, for our culture, for our survival and for the way we interact with nature itself.

I think one of the main reasons that projects usually don’t include communities is that it’s a very long-term approach. First, you have to build trust, then you have to learn to speak their language and dialogue. You have to understand what they think, what they know, how they see the environment, and only then can you start proposing certain concepts that they can apply to their livelihoods. That is something that takes a lot of time, a lot of human effort, and a lot of patience.

... Nowadays I have not only learned to overcome these hardships, but to learn from them. Now I understand they stand for the work we’re doing toward a better future, something greater than ourselves.

It’s a very grey world where you have to focus on everything that has been accomplished in the field because that’s what brings you hope moving forward.

As one grows, obstacles along the career path will shatter the dreams you had, but help you to create a different dream. I call it ‘adult dreaming’.

One thing I tell myself is that, if you give up now you are not giving up because of others, you are giving up because of yourself. If you want to stop then that’s your choice, but bear in mind that it is never someone else’s fault, it’s never an obstacle, it’s never a situation, it’s you.

What motivates me right now is the local communities that I work with. Looking at the small steps they have taken by themselves without a proper plan motivates me to help them further.

It’s very sensitive, but also very rewarding.

There’s a lot of literature that suggests the need for protection of that area. It would be in the southernmost tip of the Angolan coast. And it’s an area that borders Libya which has a high migration route, so we think we have a lot of biodiversity near there. It is also thought to be the largest nursery ground for mackerel, which is important for fisheries in Angola and Libya. It’s adjacent to a protected area in Libya and two national parks, so it would create this whole square of conservation of land and ocean that are independent of each other but can still work together in regards to conservation.