On The Ground in Malawi: Jari Luukkonen
"What I like most about my job is to see how WWF is able to change things, to make a difference"
The director of the WWF project in Malawi is Jari Luukkonen, Conservation Director for WWF Finland. In addition to the Malawi project, Jari is also responsible for all the other WWF Finland projects that are carried out in foreign countries, for example in China and in Nepal.
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Bringing WWF Finland out to the world
During his six years as Conservation Director, Jari has made a significant contribution to extending WWF Finland’s activities to various developing countries. “I think that as an industrial country, we have a responsibility to help those countries where there is scarcity of resources”, he says.“In Finland, government authorities are working quite actively to protect Finnish nature. This, in turn, gives a non-governmental organization like WWF a possibility to use a part of our resources to work in developing countries”, Jari says.
Curious about new things and keen to accept new challenges, Jari is also known as an easy-going, democratic leader of his staff. “My way of working is pretty much to trust people and to let them use the methods they find best. I’m not the strict kind of leader, telling people exactly how they should do their work.”
Nevertheless, coordinating a bunch of projects situated in various parts of the globe, and implementing various methods and innovations, is never a piece of cake. Jari thinks that some essential keys to success include having a clear long-term plan on what to do, and creating teams where synergy is possible between different people from many fields.
It is necessary to ensure that the people have a reason to feel optimistic about the future.
How to make cooperation real
One of the criteria for choosing countries to cooperate with is that the nature in the country has a significantly high value for conservation, in terms of biodiversity and uniqueness. “But it is of utmost importance that we don’t just go there and tell people what we think they should do”, Jari emphasizes. “Instead, it is necessary to have a real cooperation, where everything is planned together with the people of that country.”Another important part of the WWF way of working, is to make sure that beneficiaries include both nature and local people. “It is necessary to ensure that the people will have a safe future and a reason to feel optimistic about the future”, he says.
The role of WWF is to help to start the projects. Once the activities have initiated and are running in a self-sustaining way, WWF will leave. In Malawi, the prospects are looking good, which pleases Jari. “There is a group of people who is able and willing to carry on with the project”.
Jari himself has warm memories of Malawi and Malawians. “I been to several developing countries, and Malawi may be the poorest one I have seen. Yet the people are joyful and have a very positive attitude”, he says.
Joys and worries at the office
Ever since Jari was a schoolboy, he knew that one day his profession would have something to do with nature and conservation. He studied environmental sciences at the Faculty of Forestry and Agriculture of Helsinki University in Finland, and after working for some time with environmental issues for local government authorities in Finland, he applied for a job at WWF.”What I like most about my job is to see how WWF is able to change things, to make a difference”, he says. To him, it is also a pleasure to work for an international organization, and being able to cooperate with different countries around the world.
Even though Jari is a Conservation Director, he does many things besides just sitting behind a desk and “directing”. When you work at a WWF office in a small country like Finland, the number of staff is also small. Everyone, including the director, gets to do all kinds of things on a practical level too, which Jari enjoys.
