Senior Programme Officer - Specialist Group Partnerships (AD 828) - IUCN SSC

The UNEP-World Conservation Monitoring Centre is providing an institutional base for the Chair of the Species Survival Commission (SSC) of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), Dr Simon Stuart. The SSC is the largest of the six Commissions of IUCN, the world’s largest international conservation organisation.

The office of the Chair of the IUCN SSC is looking to fill the position of Senior Programme Officer - Specialist Group Partnerships for one year initially. The successful candidate will work closely with the IUCN SSC Specialist Group Chairs and senior members of the zoo and aquarium community to establish and foster mutually beneficial links between institutions accredited to professional zoo associations, such as the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA), the European Association of Zoos and Aquariums (EAZA), the Zoo and Aquarium Association (ZAA) and the World Association of Zoos and Aquariums (WAZA) on the one hand, and IUCN SSC Specialist Groups on the other.

The SSC comprises a network of more than 130 Specialist Groups. Each group operates on a voluntary basis and receives no core funding from IUCN or the SSC. This presents a great need for small scale but stable support in order to maintain the high quality outputs received from this network. Many zoos and aquariums now make significant and wide-ranging contributions to field-based biodiversity conservation beyond their own facilities and breeding programmes and have a great deal of expertise in population management, veterinary medicine, husbandry and research and are looking to contribute to species conservation in additional, meaningful ways.

The SSC believes that there is a great opportunity to establish mutually beneficial relationships between zoos, aquariums and Specialist Groups. These relationships will, among other things, provide expertise and credibility and specific opportunities to further engage in field conservation to zoos, aquariums and administrative, organizational and financial support to SSC Specialist Groups.

If you are looking for a rewarding and challenging post where you can make a significant contribution to the conservation community we want to hear from you. Please complete the application form and send it together with your CV and a short covering letter to recruitment@unep-wcmc.org by 30th June 2014.

Please note that this is not a UN post and we can only accept applications from those eligible to work in the UK.

WCMC is a UK charity, based in Cambridge, which supports the United Nations Environment Programme. We work in collaboration with UNEP, under the banner of UNEP-WCMC. Our mission is to evaluate and highlight the many values of biodiversity and put authoritative biodiversity knowledge at the centre of decision-making. Since our establishment in the 1970s, the Centre has been at the forefront of the compilation, management, analysis and dissemination of global biodiversity information, and has an outstanding record of achievement.

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