Project Officer – Community-led Conservation

Roles and Responsibilities

Wildlife conservation is often thought of as a biological science when it is, in fact, just as much a social and political science. The survival of WWF-India’s priority species e.g., snow leopards rely on the support of local communities and local, state, and national governments. Furthermore, conservation can only be socially just and equitable if the voices and interests of historically marginalized communities and peoples are considered in conservation programming. As such, effective and just conservation requires diverse programming that falls far outside the realm of the natural sciences: awareness interventions that help people better understand wildlife, socioeconomic interventions that make conservation sustainable if not profitable, and governance interventions that make conservation possible. Effective and just conservation also requires use of the frameworks and tools of the social sciences to assess whether such programming is working as hoped.

We are seeking applications from highly motivated and experienced candidates who want to make a difference on the ground towards conservation science and programming that benefits both people and nature.

Location: Ladakh (Western Himalayas Program)

Job responsibilities:

• Design and implement a framework to develop a “Local community vision for a future for rangelands”.
• Design conservation interventions intended to modify behavior of stakeholders/governance of priority species habitats
• Design and implement the assessment of conservation interventions- what works, how effective, what does not work and why?
• Implement WWF’s key conservation and livelihoods interventions on the ground in Changthang
• Create and manage a rangelands conservation consortium/coalition (comprised of individuals, institutions, government departments)
• Write scientific and technical papers reporting the findings of monitoring and evaluation activities.
• Support the overall social science programming for conservation in the Wester Himalayas
• Preparing the communities vision of the rangeland’s future by coordinating/executing the entire visioning process, community consultation and partnership, agreements, and an agreed upon rangelands vision/management plan for the future. Document the entire process of engagement and visioning. (2)
• Create and manage a rangelands consortium by engaging and involving all the key stakeholders in the Changthang rangelands
• Develop and implement conservation and livelihood interventions that reduce the economic losses communities face by living in proximity with wildlife (2) Synthesize the existing information, collect, collate, and analyze data to evaluate the effectiveness of our interventions and write those up as short reports and peer reviewed manuscripts.
• Support the related landscape conservation programing as the program develops and needs emerge.