TERMS OF REFERENCE
Position : Biodiversity Research Officer
Program : Sumatra
Based : Bogor
Background
The Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) has a distinguished history of scientists exploring and saving wildlife in some of the most remote and wild places remaining on Earth. The Wildlife Conservation Society Indonesia Program (WCS-IP) has significantly grown over the last decades, and contributed substantially to the conservation of biodiversity in Indonesia. We currently work in several landscapes in Sumatra and Sulawesi, where we aim to protect threatened species and their habitat through working with government agencies, civil society organisations and local communities. In order to achieve our overall goal of saving wildlife and wild places in Indonesia, WCS-IP includes amongst its strategic priorities landscape-level conservation management, support to protected areas (PAs), species conservation actions, and engaging local communities. In order to achieve our overall goal of saving wildlife and wild places, the WCS-IP programs are strongly supported and backed up by field activities that aim to improve the conservation and management of the remaining ecosystems and wildlife habitat.
The Wildlife Conservation Society — Indonesia Program (WCS-IP) has significantly grown over the last decades, and contributed substantially to the conservation of biodiversity in Indonesia. Within Sumatra, WCS focuses on landscape-level conservation around Gunung Leuser National Park and Bukit Barisan Selatan National Park, which form part of the World Heritage Site, Tropical Rainforest Heritage of Sumatra. WCS also has activities in Way Kambas National Park. Together, these three sites contain the majority of the remaining populations of Sumatran Rhino in Indonesia, and are very important for Tiger, Elephant and Orangutans. Within Sulawesi, WCS focuses on the landscape around Bogani Nani Wartabone National Park in north Sulawesi and Goronta[o provinces.
In order to strengthen our conservation programs, WCS-IP is looking for a strong and motivated person with a strong background in biological conservation especially for wildlife. Scientifically robust biodiversity indicators are required to track progress towards project goals, to define the status and trends of biodiversity, and to measure impact of the interventions. The Biodiversity Research Assistant aJong with Conservation Evidence Unit will be required to maintain a comprehensive spatial and non-spatial biodiversity database for the WCS target landscapes, and to provide technical assistance on biodiversity monitoring across the program, and maintaining WCS database system as well as conducting analyses to show the impacts of conservation interventions implemented by WCS-IP.
Biodiversity Research Assistant will be based in Bogor with regular trip to the field and work closely with GIS Officer under the Conservation Evidence Unit that leads WCS-IP collection, storage, analysis, mapping, imaging, and communication of geospatial information but also maintaining and updating of data from the field (e.g. SMART, WRU, biodiversity and survey monitoring).
SCOPE OF WORK
Job Responsibilities:
- Working together with the Conservation Evidence Unit to establish a Sumatra Program data centre which holds all data and information from the landscape particularly data from SMART patrol, Wildlife Respond Unit, Biodiversity survey and monitoring data (e.g. camera trap data habitat survey data, bird data, etc),
- Review data files from the fields and conduct basic data cleaning to ensure all observations are uniquely identified and consistent,
- Enhance the information regarding the species/location/other important information such as species guilds/characteristic, social-economic aspects of research areas,
- Collect other information from field such as species photos and descriptions,
- Drafting and preparing scientific report from biodiversity survey including species identification, species richness and abundance, and species distribution.
- Provide technical support and trainings to field officers in developing good methodologies in experimental design for biological research and analysis,
- Produce written descriptive reports such as Standard Operational Procedures (SOP) in conducting research in biodiversity, including SOP in data storage into WCS central database system,
- together with field ol’ficer to develop reports (in English and Bahasa) on any research that have been carried out in the targeted landscapes,
- Provide advice on appropriate biological monitoring system and statistical analysis, to ensure that the methodology used is of the appropriate standard,
- Provide capacity buildin‘g for field officers regarding the biodiversity monitoring methods, data analysis, and writing good reports,
- ldenti fy and develop new methods of data compilation, data logging, and analysis, using new database systems such as smart phones, online tools and websites,
- Build and maintain partnerships with other organisations to ensure that the database is kept up to date.
Job Requirements
- Minin um Bachelor Degree (SI ) of Biology, Forestry, Landscape Ecology, Environmental Science, or any relevant fields
- Minimum 2 years experiences in conducting, managing and designing field work and data collecction for empirical biological research
- Excellent written English communication skills, with focus on research protocols, research papers and descriptive reports for diverse audience
- Understand GIS, remote sensing, and navigation technique is preferred. Highly initiatives, able to work with no or little supervision.
- Able to work under pressure. Good interpersonal skills.
- Initiative, Hardworking and willing to learn a new experience
Key skills for the position include:
- Broad and expert knowledge of SPSS, MATLAB, R or other related statistical software;
- Advance in data lOgging and data cleaning using Ms. Excel or other relevant tools;
- Able to work independently in collecting data and information in the fields,
- Able to use GIS and Remote Sensing software using ArcGIS, QG JS, and other related GS software;
- Strong command of English and lndonesia as a working langtlage;
- Ability to quickly understand project parameters and needs and to work independently, meeting deadlines on time.
Please send a covering letter and CV in English to wcsindonesia@wcs.org not later than March 3, 2020 stating in the subject line “SMART Patrol Database Officer_(name)”.
Please also include a portfolio of your previous work or links to blogs or galleries online.
No correspondence, only short-listed candidates will be notified.
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