Wang Ximin (second from right) guides a group of visitors for a 'night hike' in the Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden. [Provided To China Daily]

How long does it take one to find an ideal job? For Wang Ximin, head of Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden's environmental education team, it is 12 years.

Before becoming an ardent advocate and lecturer of environmental education, the 40-year-old man worked as a middle school teacher, police officer and NGO project manager.

"I was seeking a job in which I could share my love of nature with more people and make them learn and love nature," he says.

His passion for nature began not long after he graduated from the Beijing Normal University and became a teacher in a middle school in Hangzhou, capital of East China's Zhejiang province. In a local newspaper, he came upon a column introducing the city's bird life. The birds featured in the paper fascinated him so much that he soon bought the first of his binoculars and bird watching field guide books, and started watching birds around the famous West Lake of the city.

"I still remember my first birds - a flock of light-vented bulbuls," he said. "They are the most common birds in Hangzhou. I instantly fell in love with bird watching after watching them with my binoculars."

Later, the Zhejiang native became vice-president of the Zhejiang Bird Watching Society. The president of the grassroots NGO, Chen Shuihua, turned out to be the writer of that newspaper column. "He told me that I was the only one who had been turned into a birder by his articles," he says.

In 2000, he quit his teaching job to pursue a master's degree at the Shanghai Normal University. After graduation in 2003, he received a job offer from the police station in his hometown city, Taizhou.

"While birding in those years, I found poaching was a serious problem for birds living in or migrating through the region," Wang recalls. "After witnessing the poaching of birds in the wild, I would call the police for their help. They did come to deal with the cases. I thought the police could protect birds, so why not become a police officer?