Mission context

The Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) is an international NGO headquartered at the Bronx Zoo in New York, United States. It works to save wildlife and address global challenges in more than 60 countries in Africa, Asia, the Americas and the world’s oceans. WCS believes that the conservation of nature and natural resources is essential to life on earth, to the future of humanity, and to the well-being and cultural identity of indigenous peoples and traditional and local.

Program Overview

The Central Africa and Gulf of Guinea program is one of the largest of WCS’s 13 global regional programs, covering Nigeria, Cameroon, Democratic Republic of Congo, Republic of Congo and Gabon. This is a growing program with a diverse and expanding portfolio of donors, partners and projects. The region presents a set of complex challenges in conserving biodiversity and their habitats and WCS field programs address these through a number of initiatives, including protected area management, community engagement, sustainable livelihoods, policy reform and sustainable financing. WCS recently officially established its regional center in Kigali, Rwanda, which hosts a growing team of technical specialists and regional managers to support our national programs and field offices.

Objective

The overall goal of the Regional Community Conservation Coordinator is to lead the region in implementing a rights-based approach to conservation while ensuring an enabling environment for strengthening the role of communities in conservation solutions. This position will work within the WCS regional framework and, under the leadership of the Regional Director, collaborate closely with the global Right+Communities, Forests+Climate + Marine thematic teams.

Leadership and program development

• Provide leadership and guidance on the development and implementation of community conservation initiatives across the region using a rights-based approach.
• Encourage a culture of adaptive and innovative problem-solving within community conservation teams across the region.
• Contribute to the development of project proposals to reflect and advocate for initiatives that promote inclusive, rights-based community conservation approaches.
• Contribute to the writing of technical reports to ensure community conservation activities are reflected accurately and appropriately.
• Strengthen the capacity of national programs in rights-based community conservation approaches and support the involvement of community conservation teams across the region.
• Work with national, regional and global program staff to encourage new or improved approaches and research involving communities around protected areas that specifically address conservation threats.

Technical support and program implementation

• Work closely with site managers and community conservation teams in the region to develop community conservation strategies or, where strategies already exist, evaluate and update them as necessary.
• Provide technical support and advice in key thematic areas, including but not limited to:
• Natural resource management

1. Support field teams in developing natural resource management plans consistent with sustainable conservation objectives and a rights-based approach that involves the full and meaningful participation of indigenous peoples and local communities.
2. Where appropriate, support teams on the ground to implement a step-by-step process to establish zoning and management plans in and around protected areas in the region, using the principles of consent and FPIC where necessary.

• Governance

1. Provide guidance to community conservation teams on designing, implementing and supporting inclusive and effective governance structures in the communities where we work.
2. Support teams to ensure that resource users actively participate in decision-making activities by integrating local institutions, customary or traditional practices and local knowledge systems.

• Livelihoods and socio-economic activities

1. Work with site programs to integrate a participatory and inclusive approach to livelihoods and socio-economic activities, ensuring that livelihood programming reflects the diverse needs and interests of men and women in local communities, as they expressed them.

• Indigenous peoples and conservation

1. Provide information and advice on integrating the unique traditional ecological knowledge and skills of indigenous people in the areas where we work.
2. In collaboration with field teams, put in place effective mechanisms and innovative systems for the integration of indigenous populations (men, women, young people) in all our conservation programs.

• social sciences

1. Develop action plans to effectively integrate social sciences into community conservation activities across the region.
2. Support community conservation teams in applying qualitative and quantitative social science techniques to improve conservation outcomes, including data analysis.

• Lead the development or facilitation of training materials, including contributing to the content of training materials relating to the themes listed above.

Requirements

• Advanced degree in social or environmental sciences (training in social and cultural anthropology is an added advantage).
• 5-10 years of field experience with international organizations in Africa working on community conservation and natural resource management
• Proven ability to design and conduct research on the human dimensions of conservation in international development contexts.
• Proven ability to contribute to capacity building activities
• Knowledge of social safeguards and/or social sciences in the context of conservation.
• Proven experience working with diverse groups, including different cultures, nationalities and backgrounds.
• Excellent written and oral communication skills in English and French, other local languages ​​an asset.
• Proactive, resilient, team-oriented, creative and ambitious.
• Willingness to live in a multicultural environment.