Background
- Institutionalisation of Sacred Forests as PA categories
- Piloting participatory community management plans for Sacred Forests
- Engineering sustainable uses of wild resources
- Survey and mapping of sacred forests
- Sacred forests assessment
- Sites selection
- Analysis of baseline initiatives and potential partnerships
- Sacred forests knowledge repository database
- Biodiversity monitoring system
- Baseline for engineering of sustainable use of NTFP
- Analysis of existing legal and regulatory framework to determine gaps in Sacred Forests and PAs legislation
- Assessment of the current institutional framework for sacred forests management
- Assessment of the capacity of the local committees, villages cooperatives and other stakeholders
- Assessment of financial requirements for sustainable community management
- Use Capacity Development and Financial Sustainability Scorecards to measure CSO capacity
- PPG inception workshop
- Detailed stakeholder analysis
- Identify Stakeholder involvement and capacity building plan
- Open dialog between stakeholders/ sacred forests communities and visiting populations
- Recommendations for areas of stakeholder involvement and partnership agreements
- Agreement on the list of sacred forest that will be retain as project sites
- Contracting of consultants team
- Costing of project outcomes and outputs including co-financing commitments
- Adaptive management and replication strategy
- Define local and national and global environmental benefits
- Determine most effective project alternatives
- Identify social institution, economic and financial sustainability
- Project Development Workshop
- Prepare a project monitoring and evaluation plan including baseline level indicators and targets
Duties and Responsibilities
- Play a leading role in the design of the TOR for developing the supply-value chain for traditional medicine, NTFP and other relevant products from Sacred Forests (to be put into practice during the MSP implementation) and estimate the market value of products linked to the management of Sacred Forests. This will necessarily include determining trends in demand for traditional medicine, NTFP and other relevant products from Sacred Forests and their consequences for current forest management practices
- Determine and report on the feasibility of “crop intensification” for some important commercially significant medicinal plants to relieve pressure on unsustainable harvests from Sacred Forests. The Specialist will focus on Garcinia kola to identify ways the plant can be mass produced and achieve reduced bearing times through propagation techniques or more advanced methods such as tissue culture.
- Assess the potential of other NTFPs (including the fauna products and sub-products if applicable) for inclusion in the sustainable extraction engineered component foreseen for the MSP implementation
- Work together with the national experts and other members of the PPG team to develop a partnership agreement with specialized research centers in connection with the NTFP sustainable use engineering study.
- Develop detailed TOR for the research centre to be engaged in the NTFP sustainable use engineering study
- Assist in levering extra funding for this activity
- Make recommendations for relevant project activities and their costing
Competencies
- Ability to work well in a multidisciplinary team
- Ability to effectively communicate complex, technical information to technical and general audiences
- Skill in achieving results through persuading, influencing and working with others;
- Skill in facilitating meetings effectively and efficiently and to resolve conflicts as they arise
Required Skills and Experience
- Extensive knowledge of Forestry NTFP issues, including legal and policy framework and ecological monitoring methodologies
- Experience with GEF development projects is a plus
- Hold an advanced degree in a relevant field for Forestry (with an pharmaceutical or ecological background) and have consistent professional specialization in forestry legal and enforcement issues;
- Have at least 5 years of proven experience in the mentioned field in Africa or other developing nations; and
- Demonstrated track record of relevant production in the mentioned area (publications, project proposals, reports).
- Mastery of oral and written English is a requirement;
- Working knowledge of French is a plus