Isabela Salvador, known affectionately as just “Isabel”, is a National Park ranger in the Peruvian government. She has served her time and is eligible for a promotion to the rank of captain. It was not until recently that she decided to pursue a career in wildlife conservation, a decision that marks a turning point in her life. The park she works in, called the Isabella channel, is one of the last natural barriers standing between the Andes and the Atlantic Ocean, and as such it is home to many species of aquatic plants and animals, which are threatened with extinction if the underwater ecosystem is damaged or destroyed.
Isabela Salvador’s story is typical of many women from a low-income background who have studied aquatic life and zoology in depth but who find a rewarding career in a very different field. Unlike some of her colleagues, who advance from holding a job in a museum or university to holding a position in a government conservation agency, Isabela Salvador began her career as a zoology student, following up on her interest in plants and animals. After working for several years as a zoologist and later on as a marine biologist, she pursued an education in the history of paleontology and finally decided to take a course in aquatic biology, hoping that this would allow her to pursue a career in her favorite subject. It did, and although she worked hard to maintain a job in the paleontology department at the University of Lima, in Peruvian City, she found that the salary wasn’t competitive enough to encourage her to switch careers.
Today, however, with a salary well above what her previous salary even was when she left college, she decided to turn this new goal into an even better one: to qualify for a position as director of operations in the Peruvian National Park Service. She knew that if she was able to convince her managers that her experiences and qualifications were comparable to those of a world-class expert in the aquatic flora and fauna, her chances for advancement and even a raise within the ranks of the Peruvian government were very good. Isabela Salvador never looked back. Now, at the age of 72, she is enjoying a highly successful career as an entomologist with a position as director of operations in her native country, as well as with an academic position at a leading research university in Chile.