TERMS OF REFERENCE
Position : Spatial Analyst (Specialist)
Program : Sustainable Landscape Program
Line manager : Program Manager
Key internal relations : Conservation Evidence Coordinator, Terrestrial SMART Database Officer
Location : Bogor
Background
The Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) works in over 60 countries to save wildlife and wild places through science, conservation action, education, and inspiring people to value nature. WCS has worked in Indonesia for over 20 years because it is the world’s most important country for biodiversity conservation, being ranked #1 globally for marine biodiversity and #2 globally for terrestrial biodiversity. The large and diverse WCS Indonesia Program (WCS-IP) now spans several provinces and covers all aspects of conservation, from wildlife protection to policy development, research, education and outreach, to large field-based operations covering both marine and terrestrial locations. WCS partners closely with the Indonesian Government, local communities, schools and universities, and the private sector. Further details of our program are available at https://indonesia.wcs.org and about WCS’s global work at https://www.wcs.org.
WCS-IP operates a Sustainable Landscape Program that aims to support the Government of Indonesia (GoI) through Ministry of Environment and Forestry (MoEF) to reduce threats to biodiversity, including from deforestation, and improve community livelihoods in priority landscapes through partnering with the private sector, government and communities. This includes by supporting the development of deforestation-free agriculture and commodity supply chains, supporting livelihood diversification, and restoring critical forest areas.
Spatial analysis is key to formulating strategies to address deforestation, identifying priority areas for restoration, and to monitoring progress and occurrences of deforestation in WCS landscapes. WCS is seeking an experienced Spatial Analyst who is dynamic, well-organized, hard-working, and a committed team player to provide key technical support to the Sustainable Landscapes Program.
Task and Responsibilities
The Spatial Analyst will support GoI’s work with WCS-IP to reduce the current and future threats to biodiversity and forest integrity in our landscapes driven by the unsustainable production of commodities, while supporting improved farmer livelihoods. The Spatial Analyst will provide technical assistance on GIS, remote sensing, conducting spatial analyses, and tools. Specifically, s/he will coordinate the collection, storage, analysis, mapping, imaging, and communication of geospatial information. In addition, s/he will establish and manage a landscape monitoring system in support of key WCS landscapes, which will integrate land use monitoring (forests, agriculture, land use change alerts) and socio-economic components.
More specifically this includes:
Undertake spatial analysis and prepare maps
- Design methodologies and coordinate the collection of spatial data
- Conduct analysis and interpretation of remote sensing data (e.g. satellite images) in order to assess land-use and land-use change in WCS priority landscapes.
- Conduct spatial analysis to assess the level of deforestation risk from the expansion of agricultural land, and identify priority areas for restoration, in WCS priority landscape.
- Provide support for spatially-explicit analyses, especially ecological modeling.
- Develop high quality maps for reports, presentations, journal publications and other communications materials.
- Provide training, technical assistance and mentorship to field staff regarding aspects of spatial analysis and associated data collection to ensure that field activities enable robust spatial analysis, and conversely that results of spatial analyses inform program design and implementation.
- Provide technical inputs on GIS and remote sensing for project monitoring and evaluation and the development of community compliance systems.
Landscape Monitoring System
- Select and set up a pipeline to retrieve satellite imagery needed to generate near real time deforestation alerts for key WCS landscapes.
- Coordinate the implementation of farmer registration and farm land mapping, and integrate with land use monitoring systems.
- Establish a web-GIS based near real time deforestation alerts system.
- Explore the feasibility to create in-house landscape monitoring system, combining socio-economic aspects (farmer information system) and land-use monitoring.
- Establish and manage a Landscape Monitoring System, which integrates socio-economic aspects (farmer information system) and land-use monitoring.
Stakeholder engagement and communication
- Develop high quality maps for reports, presentation, publications and other communications materials.
- Present results to relevant internal and external stakeholders at national and site-level as needed.
- Provide training and technical assistance to WCS partners, including different levels of Government, Private Sector, NGOs, and local community regarding aspect of spatial analysis, as needed, to support the achievement of WCS conservation objectives.
Requirements
- Minimum Master’s Degree (S2) in Geography, Forestry, Landscape Ecology, Environmental.
- Excellent practical knowledge on spatial analysis skills, land cover/land use class interpretation, field mapping and GPS use, geo-referencing and registering of satellite imagery, with remote sensing and image processing skills an advantage.
- Able to competently operate GIS software (especially ESRI ArcGIS, ERDAS and freeware GIS) and have some experience with image processing software (such as ENVI/ERMapper and Global Mapper).
- High levels of initiative and able to competently work with little supervision.
- Proficiency in both English and Indonesian languages is preferred.
- Able to work well under pressure, quickly understand project parameters and capable of meeting deadlines on time.
- A high interest in wildlife conservation.
- Good interpersonal skills.
Please note that the above TOR constitutes only the main responsibilities and duties of this position. As WCS IP is a flexible organization, staff members are expected to undertake any other tasks that are allocated to them but which are not part of their regular TOR.
Applications
Please send a covering letter and CV in English to idrecruitment@wcs.org no late than 12 February 2021, stating in the subject line “Spatial Analyst Specialist_(name)”.
No correspondence, only short-listed candidates will be notified.