Regional Marine Monitoring Specialist

Position: Regional Marine Monitoring Specialist
Reports to: Regional Marine Program Coordinator
Location: Libreville, Gabon
Country Program/Sector: WCS Gabon Program
Start date: ASAP
Position Type: Full-time
Expected travel: Local travel to field sites and sub-offices, Republic of Congo, DRC, Cameroon and Sao Tome e Principe.

Background:

The Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and partners are tackling the issue of deteriorating marine environments in the Central Africa Region and the Atlantic Ocean by working with governments, coastal communities, and key stakeholders to sustainably manage marine resources into the future. The lower part of the Guinean Golf, along the coast of the central Africa region includes important marines and coastal habitat such as mangroves, estuaries, submarines canyons. The marine’s resources are critical sources of protein for the coastal populations. Yet, the integrity of the region’s ecosystems is threatened by the overexploitation of fisheries, habitat clearing, and pollution. These threats are exacerbated by the impacts of climate change, including sea level rise and modification of habitats.

Our work focuses on marine habitats (rocky bottoms, embouchures, and mangroves), marine protected areas, artisanal and industrial fisheries, and protecting critically important species across Congo and Gabon where we have national marine programs with a potential extension in the other countries of the subregion. In these countries, WCS develops and leads long-term conservation approaches and programs, provides technical trainings to build community and government capacity, provides high-quality data on marine status and trends, and develops mechanisms for sustainable finance to support conservation. WCS sustains decades long engagement in each nation that enables our team to develop response plans for emerging challenges and ensures lasting results based on long-term investments.

Position:

The position will work to ensure regionally cohesive data collection and reporting systems, support national teams with data analysis where needed, write or co-write reports to communicate research and project results, and support development of grants nationally and regionally. The position will work with the Marine Program coordinator to ensure that WCS remains at the cutting edge of emerging issues and opportunities by identifying regionally cross-cutting areas for new investment, while technically supporting national marine teams as needed and building regional capacity for marine science.

Position Location and Terms:

The position will be based in the WCS office in Libreville, Gabon and will be an initial contract for 2 years. The contract may be renewed contingent on performance and funding.

Specific Duties:

• Supporting national teams in summarizing and analyzing fishery related, ecological and social data where needed, and analyzing regional datasets generated.
• Write reports summarizing findings of ecological and social surveys and contribute to development of scientific papers.
• Support grant writing of national and regional teams
• Support teams in project management as needed and ensuring high quality deliverables
• Participate in writing of management plan for MPA
• Understand data collection approaches used in each WCS Central Africa nation and collaboratively develop cross cutting data collection approaches where these do not exist.
• Develop data collection frameworks using electronic tools (e.g. KOBO Toolbox)
• Conduct site visits where needed to assess national needs and support teams.
• Train teams on data collection and data management techniques where needed (online and in the field).
• Participate or lead field data collection expeditions.
• In collaboration with country program leadership, maintain partnerships with other NGOs and research institutions in the region.
• Attend and represent WCS at regional meetings as requested.
• Any other task requested by the supervisor or region.

Qualification Requirements

• Master’s degree in ecology or Ph.D. in marine science
• Highly competent in data analysis and graphing in R, Python, or other programming languages.
• Experience in conducting ecological surveys focused on marine ecosystems.
• Experience developing marine monitoring protocols.
• Experience managing research programs or grant management experience.
• Ability to review, interpret, and produce scientific documents across diverse marine disciplines. Evidence of scientific scholarship (e.g. peer reviewed publications).
• Proposal development experience
• Experience in training others or teaching
• Willingness to work at remote field sites.
• Excellent communication and organization skills
• Ability to work under tight timelines.
• Innovation and creativity in addressing challenges ranging from technical to finance related.
• Demonstrated ability to work independently and with a diverse team. Must be solution-oriented and have strong problem solving and analytical skills.
• English and French fluency are required.

Desired Qualifications

• Knowledge of the Atlantic Ocean including marine conservation challenges and needs
• GIS skills
• Field experience working with seagrass and mangrove ecosystems.
• Experience working with small scale fishing communities.
• Experience with grants management and grant reporting in a multi-funder environment
• Experience working with national government agencies.