When Anne Dix was a teenager living in Guatemala, she attended a presentation by an environmental officer on the work that the U.S. Agency for International Development was doing to promote forest products in the Maya Biosphere Reserve. At that moment, she said, she was “hooked” and decided this was her dream job.
Dix, who has a Ph.D. in ecology, has now been with USAID for 22 years and managed environmental programs in Central America, the Amazon region, and West Africa. She is currently based in Washington as senior adviser at the Bureau for Development, Democracy, and Innovation but is soon heading to Botswana to serve as a country representative.
The day-to-day of an environmental officer differs depending on the place but can involve collaborating with local nonprofits and governments to set up protection systems or develop policies and regulations, working with government agencies during forest fire outbreaks, or spending time with communities to understand natural resource conflicts.