Cameroon: Central Africa Coordinator for Wildlife Crime prevention

Position title: Central Africa Coordinator for Wildlife Crime prevention

Reports to: Conservation Director, Cameroon Country Programme Office

Supervises: -

Location:Yaounde

Date:July 2015

I.Mission of the Department:*WWF is taking a holistic approach to combatting wildlife crime along the entire illicit supply chain through effective field support, disrupting networks trafficking high-value wildlife products and reducing demand through changing consumer behaviour. In an effort to build on existing initiatives and processes to strengthen its core conservation efforts aimed at ensuring sustainable wildlife populations in priority landscapes and protected areas, WWF aspires to replicate its successes from tiger landscapes in Asia, to key landscapes in Central Africa. The objective is to increase support to rangers and park managers in their daily wildlife protection roles, through adequate training and by advocating for improved operational capacities, working conditions and employment standards. Furthermore, there is a need to address the rampant corruption within the enforcement system and the lack of incentives that are discouraging wildlife officials from pursuing highly placed or, ‘white collar’ traffickers, and rendering park management ineffective in many areas.*

II.Major Functions:*To lead the WWF Central Africa law enforcement support efforts and to mobilise action towards stopping the poaching of elephants, great apes and other wildlife as effectively and as efficiently as possible.*

III.Major Duties and Responsibilities:

Leadership and Advocacy responsibilities

1. Advocate at the regional and national levels for appropriate financing and resourcing (including staffing levels) of landscape level wildlife crime prevention, ensuring rangers have access to all required field, safety and communications equipment, as well as adequate legal protection and support, including where relevant, the ability to carry and use weapons.
2. Lobby for the adoption and roll out of locally adapted performance-based incentives, and promotions based on demonstrated competencies, for wildlife enforcement personnel.
3. Lobby for the implementation of an anti-corruption and a formal zero tolerance policy in the fight against poaching.
4. Provide leadership, vision and motivation in support of the efforts conducted within Central Africa that mobilise national action for the purpose of moving as quickly as possible towards the ‘Zero Poaching’ initiative.
5. Lobby for the establishment of National Coordination Units as outlined in PAPECALF (a government sanctioned wildlife law enforcement plan) and inter-agency task forces in the priority landscapes or per country.
6. Advocate for effective cross-border law enforcement and intelligence exchange actions.
7. Ensure MOUs are signed between neighbouring countries sharing frequent poaching and trafficking activities (which address critical, contentious legal issues such as extradition).
8. Ensure governments recognise the validity of communities as conservation stakeholders, and lobby for policies and legislative changes that provide incentives for communities to proactively live with and manage wildlife.
9. Support and/or establish national and regional ranger federations.
10. Support a global or regional fallen (including injured/disabled) ranger fund to support ranger’s families.
11. Conduct World Ranger Day celebrations.
12. Act as the figurehead for the ‘Stop the Poaching’ pillar internally and externally of WWF. This would include coordinating the activities of the Central Africa Poaching prevention working group, supporting communication activities involving media interviews, blogs, press releases, expertise networks, in addition to the development and implementation of various communication activities and products.

Technical Responsibilities

1. Finalise and implement a Wildlife Crime Prevention toolkit (based on the already developed WWF Tigers Alive toolkit).
2. Start rolling out toolkit in two priority transboundary landscapes: TNS (Sangha Tri-national) covering Cameroon, Congo and CAR, and TRIDOM (Tri-national Dja-Odzala-Minkebe) covering Cameroon, Congo and Gabon.
3. Provide on-going technical support to country and landscape leads and intelligence officers.
4. Work with partners to develop global training and ranger certification schemes.
5. Work with government partners to develop landscape strategies for wildlife crime prevention, including realistic and ground-truthed budgets for the 2 priority landscapes; ensure sustainable financing.
6. Support implementing the SMART adaptive management process in key protected areas and forest concessions, starting with the two landscapes TNS and TRIDOM so that existing resources are being used as efficiently as they can be and management systems on site improved (SMART Basic). Furthermore, advocate for and start implementing SMART Site-based Protection Standards and identified capacity building/training (SMART Assured). This will entail the following activities:

· Apply the software SMART und use it to its greatest effect in the surveillance strategy in a given site.

· Train and undertake missions with government, park and other site staff responsible for wildlife management inside and outside of protected areas throughout the TNS and TRIDOM landscapes on law enforcement monitoring and applying SMART to assure quality surveillance data is collected, analysed, reported, used for adaptive management and entered in a data base for consolidation at a national level.

1. Supervise and guide a programme of work related to protected area management and specifically the implementation of the Conservation Assured scheme.

Management and Operational Responsibilities

1. Manage projects, activities and consultancies related to the strategy.
2. Establish strong partnerships with relevant organisations (such as Interpol, EAGLE network, Lusaka Agreement Task Force etc.) at the global, regional, national and local scales in order to best amplify the implementation of the objectives relating to the ‘Stop the Poaching’ program of work, which also includes promoting the intelligence led law enforcement approach.
3. Collaborate with TRAFFIC to ensure synergies between anti-poaching work and anti-trafficking/intelligence activities, especially those which address landscape-level intelligence work and its link to enforcement operations.
4. Ensure smooth, effective and efficient management as to the maintenance of funds (including fundraising and proposal writing) and projects related to the ‘Stop the Poaching’ program of work.
5. Manage and adapt procedures for monitoring the impact and progress of the ‘Stop the Poaching’ program of work.

Key Outputs

1. Completion of baseline assessments of law enforcement support efforts for each of the 5 Central African countries (Cameroon, CAR, Congo, DRC, Gabon), and mobilization of action to ensure that any gaps in the implementation are filled as soon as possible.
2. Establishment of SMART Basic in at least 2 WWF priority landscapes (TNS and TRIDOM).
3. Development and establishment of Conservation Assured PA management effectiveness systems for elephants and great apes.
4. Securing of support and action from 6 Central African countries and their WWF national offices for stopping the poaching.
5. Provision of Bi-annual technical reports and work plans for the WCI ‘Stop the Poaching’ pillar.
6. Maintenance of the Profile, reputation and credibility of the WCI ‘Stop the Poaching’ pillar of WWF at the highest level possible.

IV.Profile:

Required Qualifications

• At least 5 years’ experience working in the field of anti-poaching and/or protected area management;
• Relevant qualification in the field of law enforcement (anti-corruption, wildlife law etc.);
• Experience in Central African countries an added advantage.

Required Skills and Competencies

· Strong communication skills - both written and verbal as appropriate for the needs of the audience.

· Culturally aware and able to work effectively in various cultural environments.

· A team player, but also very capable of working with minimal supervision.

· Good budgeting and financial management capacity.

· Exhibits great enthusiasm for wildlife conservation.

· Strategic planning and capacity assessment skills related to effective crime prevention approaches.

· Ability to manage monitoring systems and sensitive and discrete information.

· Fundraising and donors reporting skills.

· Fluency in both written and spoken English. Knowledge of French language is a clear added advantage.

· Adhere to WWF’s values: Knowledgeable, Optimistic, Determined and Engaging.

V.Working Relationships:

Internal- Develop a close professional working relationship with the global ‘Stop the Poaching’ pillar leader and the other regional ‘Stop the Poaching’ pillar leads (starting with South East Asia) ; work closely with the Central Africa Head of Policy Engagement for Wildlife Crime Initiative, regional and national offices across Central Africa (especially teams in charge of anti-poaching and law enforcement support work); liaise with TRAFFIC towards integrating intelligence from anti-poaching and protected area management into landscape, national, regional and international intelligence networks and databases will be essential.

External- Nurture and maintain positive relationships with other conservation NGOs (national and regional), as well as government agencies that have conservation objectives and goals that are similar or complementary to those of WWF.

This job description covers the main tasks and conveys the spirit of the sort of tasks that are anticipated proactively from staff. Other tasks may be assigned as necessary according to organizational needs.

Email a cover letter and a resume to recruitccpo@wwfcarpo.org.

The subject should read RCW.

Deadline for applications: 14^th September 2015

PLEASE Kindly note that only shortlisted candidates will be contacted.

WWF is an equal opportunity employer and committed to having a diverse workforce!