There’s been plenty of first time experiences for Paris Capell in the past year—including getting a job with Local Land Services in Cobar, joining the Cobar women’s rugby team, scoring a Global Voices Fellowship and planning a trip to Rome.
Apart from the rugby, one thing has led to the other.
Paris came to Cobar in September last year to take up her role as a Natural Capital Advisor with Western Local Land Services.
“My role involves trying to find ways we can fund environmental activities on local properties,” Paris said.
“But I found there are really limited programs out here for rangelands so I started to get into the policy space to try to get some movement which started off with the National Farmers Federation.
“And from that, I realised that there’s a big global policy gap around the invasive native scrub we have here and which happens all around the world.
“There’s no policy to support it.”
That led Paris to applying for a Global Voices Fellowship.
Global Voices is a youth-led Australian not-for-profit group committed to developing the next generation of leaders by providing practical experience in policymaking, international relations and diplomacy.
Paris said when she saw the program advertised, which included a trip to Rome for the World Food Forum in October, she thought it would be amazing.
“But why would they choose me?
“And then I thought ‘you miss 100 per cent of the shots you don’t take’, so I’ll just go for it!”
Paris said as part of her application, she was tasked to come up with a policy idea.
“Mine is about Rangeland Dust Credits, so that’s hopefully getting paid for increased ground cover, which reduces dust onloads in major cities.”
Paris progressed through the application process and at each stage thought, “Oh they’re just being nice”.
She was surprised and thrilled to be chosen for one of the 23 positions from among the group of 700 applicants.
“We get to work on a policy over six months and then go to the World Food Forum in Rome and talk about our ideas internationally, which is very exciting,” Paris said.
The Forum brings together the next generation of students, farmers, scientists and entrepreneurs to enact change and gain the tools necessary for the transformation of global agrifood systems and to address climate change.
As part of the Fellowship program, Paris recently spent a few days in Canberra for pre-departure training which included some of the technical aspects of the trip but also tips on diplomacy, for example not to ask for a cappuccino after 12pm, and take Caramello Koalas to meetings with international delegates.
“A lot of those soft skills that I would not have even thought about,” Paris said.
The Fellowship involves regular participation in online think tank meetings with the cohort around Australia along with leaders and policymakers.
Paris said that gives them the opportunity to ask questions about policy options, get help with policy budgeting, find out what the government looks for in policies, and get help to improve policy writing.
“For me personally, I’ve learned so much already,” Paris said.
The Forum in Rome is over five days and covers a variety of themes such as fertilizer efficiency, nature finance (which is what Paris is interested in) and getting indigenous perspectives into agriculture.
“I’m most excited about what’s called bilateral meetings with other countries like Mongolia, Argentina and Mexico, areas which have similar rainfall and rangeland issues, identify similarities and find out whether they do, and build on those.
“Ultimately I hope the policy I propose gets noticed by the policymakers down in Canberra and we can get some more investment into natural capital in our region for landholders,” Paris said.
