Wildlife conservation. Commonwealth Scholarship - Personal Statement

Personal Statement

Wildlife conservation is critical since we are losing endangered species all the time due to issues such as urbanization, climate change, and wildlife crime. Wildlife crime has become common in the small town where I grew up in northeast India. Airports or the large international border along northeast India are the main entry and exit sites for international wildlife trafficking into and out of India. Local conservation initiatives have contributed to a reduction in wildlife crime in such locations. However, there is a lack of understanding, as well as challenges experienced by some communities due to financial constraints, which has led them to such unlawful wildlife practices. Seeing such difficulties that still exist in my nation has inspired me to take action.

My goal is to study animal conservation and management while also encouraging conservation in the local community. I grew fond of wildlife and desired to learn more about it. Fieldwork and academic study helped me to develop a deeper awareness of nature as I grew older and decided to major in zoology for my bachelor's degree. Through merit, I was selected for a master's program in Zoology at Gauhati University. The pandemic prevented us from attending physical lessons, and no course paper specifically addressed wildlife conservation during my master's degree. This is another reason that I want to do a course specifically focused on my field of interest-wildlife conservation. I believe that applying to Master's programmes in wildlife conservation and management at UK universities would be a positive step in the direction of my long-term professional goals.

My passion for wildlife conservation emanates from the curiosity I have to know about the various facets of wildlife and the want to conserve it. I recently did an internship with the Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust and Aaranyak in the Pygmy Hog Conservation Program (PHCP) in Manas National Park. I noted the outstanding work of wildlife conservationists and the local community in saving the species from extinction. I learned about radio telemetry and triangulation, as well as about local conservation beliefs, from the local communities who live around the park. This demonstrated the need of encouraging community-based conservation and promoting awareness. In addition, I contributed to the programme with my artistic and writing abilities.

I'm particularly interested in the MSc Global Wildlife Health and Conservation programme at the University of Bristol. This course, along with wildlife-related topics, will teach me about practical conservation approaches. I wish to develop my fieldwork abilities, learn from many wildlife conservationists, and acquire significant knowledge for my professional objectives. To date, poaching of the horns of the one-horned rhinoceros is being carried out in my state i.e. Assam, although the occurrences have reduced. Science has provided us with important and reliable data that can be used for wildlife conservation and combating unlawful wildlife practices like poaching, for example, artificial Intelligence is increasingly used for this.

Another issue that prevails in my state is human-wildlife conflicts which cause loss to the local community and at the same time, leave wild animals frightened. I want to improve my abilities while learning new techniques and approaches for good conservation implementations during my studies, as well as learn about mitigation measures for human-wildlife conflicts in my country, which I intend to work on after returning to India.

Coming from a low-income home with both parents retired, I hope to attend a UK institution that offers the courses I'm interested in, which Commonwealth scholarships can help me achieve. Through this scholarship, I can learn about conservation and management as well as the environmental issues that have been prevailing on our planet. Industrialisation, climate change, global warming, and illegal wildlife practices have become major threats to nature which will eventually lead to an imbalance in the world if not controlled now. I want to bring awareness of wildlife conservation and sustainable living among the general public and advocate for change.

Since the applicant already has a previous MS certification, his paper should be sounding more professional and more career oriented than this. The focus of the paper should already be on how his career path has developed since he completed his previous masters course. A personal statement should show the reviewer that his previous masters course was limited in application and requires him to pursue a secondary masters course due to the evolving nature of his interest in the field of wildlife conservation. It would help to reference the development and wildlife programs that the Prince of Wales has indicated in his speech a few days ago at the wildlife conservation conference and how these words resonate with the development of your wildlife conservation ideas for your own country.

The applicant needs to reflect more of his actual skills and abilities in this essay. He sounds like he is just beginning to understand what wildlife conservation is about at this point, coming across on paper more as an undergraduate student rather than someone who has worked in this field for at least 2 years, and developed relevant skills and knowledge that would prove his preparedness to complete the course.

Referencing financial difficulty in the last paragraph is one step too far in terms of coming across as begging for the scholarship. All of the applicants are financially challenged, that does not make the applicant stand out amongst them. He has to qualify based on merit rather than on financial need.