This internship will support WWF’s ongoing efforts to analyze the state, threats, drivers, and responses related to managed forest. The candidate will be working with the WWF Forest Team in Washington, DC to collect, review and synthesize spatial and non-spatial datasets on the state of forests, as well as drivers and responses related to deforestation and forest degradation, in select geographies.
Our internship facilitates mutually meaningful engagement between the candidate and WWF, which is in accordance with WWF project needs and the educational interests and professional aspirations of the candidate. This should give not only usable collateral and materials for WWF, but also valuable work experience toward the candidate’s professional development in research skills and knowledge around forest conservation. Specifically, this internship position will provide the candidate with an opportunity to acquire and apply his/her knowledge and research skills in the following topical areas:
- Consolidate the best available knowledge in land use change, socio-economic development, and policy interventions pertaining to forest conservation;
- Spatially quantify various aspect of forest quality in select geographies,
- Monitoring frameworks and indicators for demonstrating ecological outcomes and impacts
- Spatial data visualization and communications
Duration:
January-June 2020 (up to 6 months)
The intern will assist WWF supervisors to:
- Review existing reporting guidance, monitoring frameworks, and publicly available databases to compile an inventory of ecological and social indicators for select geographies
- Collect and organize the spatial datasets identified in the inventory in ready-to-use format
- Develop maps and other infographic products and upload interactive maps to open-access, interactive online platform
- Populate a database of forest management interventions and connect the database with online platform
- Assist with quantitative assessment of the effectiveness of select conservation approaches by conducting spatial statistics
- Review and synthesize the literature on the impacts and challenges associated with various forest conservation approaches
- Conduct other tasks assigned by his/her supervisors
Expectations
The intern will be working closely with WWF Lead Forest R&D on a daily basis. He/she will be primarily working with the supervisor in the Washington, DC office and will correspond with WWF network offices for research purposes, as identified and assigned by the supervisor. The intern will be required to maintain at minimum weekly communications with his/her supervisor. It is his/her responsibility to ensure all issues related to the project activities are brought to the attention of his/her supervisor and are promptly resolved. Lack of communications and delays in submitting required deliverables may result in early termination of the internship by WWF.
Qualifications
- Strong GIS skills and proficiency in GIS and remote-sensing applications (e.g. Google Earth Engine, ArcGIS)
- Familiarity with the scientific literature on remote-sensing and other types of forest monitoring methods
- Prior experience in database management
- Ability to stay organized and work independently with minimum supervision; must be able to meet deadlines in a fast-paced working environment
- Knowledge in and aptitude for global and regional forest conservation issues
- Ability to communicate with internal and external partners around the globe professionally
- Knowledge and experience in software (e.g. STATA, R, Python) preferred