WCS IP Sulawesi Program Job Vacancy: GIS Specialist - Bogor, Indonesian

Position: GIS Specialist
Division: Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) Indonesia Program
Reports to: Species Conservation Specialist
Coordinates with: Sulawesi Program Manager, Turtle Conservation Coordinator, Regional Technical Advisor and Chief Advisor
Term: One year, with renewal depending upon performance
Location: Bogor, with travel in Indonesia

Background to the Terms of Reference (ToR)

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. WCS-IP currently has programs focusing on Sumatra, Sulawesi, Marine and Illegal Wildlife Trade, with a presence in >10 provinces. Flagship species for these programs include Sumatran Tigers, Sumatran Rhinos, Elephants, Orangutans, Manta Rays and the Maleo in Sulawesi. In order to achieve our overall goal of saving wildlife and wild places in Indonesia, we aim to protect threatened species and their habitat through working with government agencies, civil society organisations, private sector and local communities. WCS is now seeking a GIS Officer who is dynamic, well-organized, hard-working, and committed team player to provide key technical support to the WCS’s conservation programs.

The GIS Specialist will be required to maintain a comprehensive spatial database for the WCS terrestrial landscapes in Sulawesi and Nusa Tenggara Timor, especially for WCS’s new Rote Island turtle project. This will involve the collection, storage, analysis, mapping, imaging, and communication of geospatial information. The Specialist will provide technical assistance on GIS and remote-sensing across the projects and conduct spatial analyses, such as species distribution mapping and monitoring land-use change. The work will provide support to both field interventions as well as policy development. The position will be based in Bogor, with regular trips to the field to provide direct technical advice, monitoring and capacity building of field staff.

Key Areas of Responsibility
Establish and maintain a database of GIS and remote-sensing data

• Support the maintenance of a geospatial database containing GIS, remote-sensing and other spatial and non-spatial data for key landscapes where WCS works, including the location of infrastructure or commercial development activities.
• Continually identify, acquire and enrich the database with external spatial data relevant to WCS-IP’s conservation activities.
• Ensure the database is appropriately stored and regularly backed up.
• Provide technical support to the development and maintenance of web database applications and any other database program and functions requiring programming and analysis.
• Provide training, technical assistance and mentorship to programmatic staff regarding all aspects of database development and management, including data compilation, logging, analysis, and access.
• Provide advice on appropriate GIS, spatial analysis and database software, to ensure that the software used is of the appropriate standard.

Prepare maps and undertake spatial analyses

• Provide GIS support to specific projects, including development of thematic maps, such as species distributions, and forest cover.
• Support the analysis of remote-sensing data (e.g. satellite images) in order to assess land-use and land-use change in the target landscapes.
• Undertake ground-truthing as needed, in conjunction with field staff, in order to verify the maps and spatial analyses produced and to determine levels of accuracy.
• Model key species populations, building upon other data sources available to WCS.
• Provide technical inputs on GIS and remote sensing for project monitoring and evaluation.
• Develop high quality maps for reports, presentations and other communication materials.
• Support the design of spatial planning based on biodiversity importance, commodity production areas, ecosystem and wildlife threat status, biogeographical representative of Sulawesi’s PA system, carbon sequestration potential and current land use.
• Support the development of a terrestrial PA system consolidation plan and action plan for the entire Sulawesi terrestrial PA system based on spatial planning/alignment designed with mainstreaming of biodiversity importance and biogeographical representatives of Sulawesi PA system, climate change adaptation, and connectivity.
• Map PA buffer zones, existing land uses and PA boundary condition of target PAs in Sulawesi, including options for biodiversity-based Park boundary to support subsequent Action Plan or other strategy document development.
• Support the mapping of illegal/unsustainable agricultural commodity supply chains originating from WCS landscapes, and the development of land use plans to mitigate these impacts.

Engage as a key member of the WCS technical specialist team

• Provide capacity building to field staff to ensure that spatial analysis becomes part of the program analysis in implementing activities.
• Present results to relevant stakeholders at national and site level as needed.
• Assist in the preparation of activity reports by providing datasets and data analysis required by donors and/or stakeholders, in Indonesian or English, written or verbal, as well as submit regular technical reports to the GIS Specialist.

Requirements

• Minimum Bachelor Degree (S1), ideally Masters 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).
• Understand and able to use Global Positioning System and its software.
• Highly 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.
• Good interpersonal skills.
• A high interest in wildlife conservation.

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.

If you are interested in the above position and consider that you possess the necessary qualifications, please submit an up-to-date curriculum vitae, expected salary, names of three professional references and a cover letter explaining your interest towards this work and this organization to wcsindonesia@wcs.org. Please fill the “subject” column of the e-mails in this format “GIS Specialist Wallacea_(name of candidate)”.

Deadline: 16 June, 2016 No correspondence, only short-listed candidates will be notified.