POSITION DESCRIPTION
POSITION: Healthy Ecosystems Campaigner
RESPONSIBLE TO: Healthy Ecosystem Program Manager
LOCATION: Canberra or Melbourne
GRADE: 5
SALARY: $76,230 per annum (inc. 9% superannuation)
STATUS: Two-year contract
HOURS: Full time
BACKGROUND
The protection and restoration of healthy ecosystems has been at the heart of the Australian Conservation Foundation’s work for over 40 years. The ACF has played a pivotal role in protecting Australia’s environment – including iconic places like the Great Barrier Reef and the Franklin River. It was instrumental in establishing the Landcare movement.
The Healthy Ecosystems Program is building on this legacy and is working to achieve the protection, management and restoration of significant Australian terrestrial, freshwater and marine ecosystems. The program’s specific goals are to achieve: - Effective long-term landscape scale protection, management and where possible restoration of Australian ecosystems, especially its biodiversity;
- Solutions for ecosystem protection, management and restoration based on collaborative social relationships; and
- Improved ecological resilience and capacity for species and ecological communities to adapt to climate change.
POSITION PURPOSE
The Healthy Ecosystem Campaigner will be a catalyst for change, working towards achieving effective long-term landscape-scale protection of Australia’s ecosystems. The campaigner will develop and implement campaigns that engage Australia’s communities and inspire decision makers to action that advances the goals of ACF’s 10-year strategy.
KEY RESPONSIBILITIES - Develop and implement campaign programs directed towards achieving the goals and objectives of ACF’s 10 year strategy.
- Translate ACF policy objectives into appropriate liaison materials (e.g. correspondence and briefing papers) for politicians, government officials, business people and other key stakeholders and audiences.
- Be an advocate for ACF’s policy goals and objectives with state and federal governments, business and other relevant stakeholders.
- Work collaboratively with ACF’s communications staff to ensure effective coordination of ACF public messages and positioning, and promote ACF to the media, target audiences and the public on topics relevant to the campaign.
- Complete high-level policy research, and high-quality reports and submissions.
- Cooperate with and support other environmental organisations working on similar or related issues to advance ACF’s goals and objectives.
- Identify funding opportunities in annual work plans and campaign plans, and cooperate with ACF marketing staff to coordinate fundraising initiatives and engagement with supporters and potential supporters.
- Work collaboratively with ACF senior management, other campaigners and program teams, and across the broader organisation to deliver program goals.
- Other duties as required by the Healthy Ecosystems Program Manager.
Experience, skills and personal attributes required:
- Knowledge of and commitment to ACF’s vision, values and goals.
- Demonstrated experience in an area including environment, social, economic, and/or industry policy that is relevant to achieving the purpose of this position.
- Demonstrated campaign, advocacy and project management experience.
- Working knowledge of the processes of government.
- Experience in building effective public engagement networks and partnerships.
- Excellent written and oral communication skills including demonstrated analytical and report writing skills and the capacity to represent ACF publicly through media and public speaking events.
- The ability to work both independently and collaboratively and contribute to a team.
- Relevant tertiary qualifications would be an advantage.
Note – some intra and interstate travel will be required.
Focus of the Healthy Ecosystems Campaigners work
The Healthy Ecosystems Campaigner will work on developing and implementing a successful public campaign that results in action to protect and restore high conservation value freshwater ecosystems in southern Australia. Initially the focus of the work will be the Murray-Darling Basin.
The Healthy Ecosystems Campaigner will work closely with ACF staff engaged in the campaign to recover water to restore environmental flows in the Murray and Darling River Systems.
Background on the protection priorities for freshwater ecosystems
Rising greenhouse gas has concentrations are causing large scale changes to the Earth’s climate systems. These changes will have profound implications for the health of freshwater ecosystems.
Strengthening protected area networks is one strategy for protecting and creating refuges for biodiversity in landscapes threatened by the impacts of global warming. Freshwater ecosystems are poorly represented in Australia’s National Reserve System.
Freshwater ecosystems and are analogous to the ‘arteries and kidneys’ of the landscape, they provide the conduits for water through the Australian landscape and act as important buffers between catchment land use impacts and downstream aquatic ecosystems.
They may also rightly be considered part of the nation’s most important ‘natural infrastructure’ responsible for the provision of ecosystem services including: water quality maintenance, flood mitigation, erosion control, biodiversity protection and fisheries production, and of equivalent importance to the nation as road networks or other built infrastructure.
Despite Australians’ high levels of concern about the sustainability of water management, awareness of the significance of river floodplains and wetlands appears to be low. As a nation, Australia does not treat these systems with the reverence their importance should elicit.
The need to better protect and manage these systems stems, not only from existing values and functions, but also from the range of increasing pressures freshwater ecosystems will be subject to due to climate change and the role riparian and wetland systems can play in mitigating associated impacts if they are in a healthy and resilient condition.
Australia urgently needs to make the protection and restoration of freshwater ecosystems a national conservation priority.
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