Community & Family Forests Manager (m-f-d)

The Mission

FSC works to take care of our forests and those who rely on them by protecting plant and animal species, Indigenous Peoples’ rights, forest workers’ safety, and much more. We achieve this through FSC certification, ensuring forests around the world are responsibly managed. For more information on FSC, visit our website at www.fsc.org.

To effectively meet the challenge of protecting the world’s forests, we are committed to ensuring we have the world’s most skilled people working with us. This commitment extends to everyone that works in FSC around the world: from those that lead the design of policies and standards, to those that roll out those same policies and standards on the ground, and to those that provide us with backbone to do our work.

We are looking for an engaged Community & Family Forests Manager who brings solid expertise and a passion for FSC’s mission, to work with us in a multinational environment.

The Scope

About Performance & Standards Unit (PSU)

PSU is the unit in FSC responsible for setting requirements for responsible forest management all over the world. While cornerstone rules are set internationally, many of FSC requirements need local adaptation, resulting in various normative documents produced that are applicable for a given country or region.

About Community & Family Forests (CFF) Program

The CFF program is a core program in PSU established to make the FSC system more attractive and relevant to small-scale, low intensity and community managed forests. These forests have specific characteristics, such as land size, ownership or internal governance that require tailor made approaches. Finding globally consistent and locally adaptable policy solutions, as well as business or market related tools is our goal.

Our program works towards overcoming barriers and challenges faced by these groups, for which we have created an encompassing toolbox aimed towards increasing uptake of FSC certification and scaling up the benefits for these stewards. This toolbox includes dedicated normative requirements, various business development tools, and more.

About the role

You will be part of the Performance & Standards Unit and working directly in the program of Community & Family Forests. As part of the Community & Family Forests team, you will manage the program’s activities, supporting the implementation of the different solutions and tools in the European region.

You will work across cultures and countries and go the extra mile to include others in your work and you build a strong personal network across hierarchies and functions.

You look for pragmatic solutions, functioning as the anchor in CFF implementation initiatives in Europe and supporting the team and the colleagues across our network in their various capacity development activities.

You will report to the Program Manager (Community & Family Forests).

Main Responsibilities

• Support the implementation of the Community & Family Forests solutions and tools in Europe:
  • Coordinate and support the regional and national projects, ensuring work plan and budget adherence and that deadlines are met.
  • Coordinate communication activities (organize webinars and other online events, maintain FSC website content, trainings, preparation of materials for meetings, etc.).
  • Align with other units/teams working on the ground to make sure we are working towards the same outcome.
• Keep up-to-date and comprehensive process documentation.
• Reply to information requests by stakeholders, particularly Certification Bodies and FSC Network Partners.
• Develop, under the guidance of the Program Manager, annual work plan and budget for the relevant projects.
• Closely collaborate with FSC Network Partners, designing the capacity development activities to implement the CFF portfolio of forest solutions and market related tools.
• Develop further tools supporting small-scale forest owners/community members to meet emerging regulations, specifically the ones focusing on deforestation.

Qualification, Experience and Skills

• Education and Training:
  • Minimum of M.Sc. degree in forestry.
  • Other degrees are a strong asset (e.g., Ecology, Natural Resource Management, Community Forestry).
  • Certified auditor training is a plus.
  • Certified project management qualification is a plus.

• Working Experience, Style and Skills:
  • At least 5 years of professional experience in one or more of the following areas: Forest management, Natural Resource Management, Auditing, and/or third-party certification.
  • Experience in other fields requiring management of medium to long term projects is a plus.
  • Very strong sense of diligence and accuracy.
  • Strong analytical and problem-solving skills.
  • Excellent time management skills: ability to perform well while handling simultaneously several functions.

• Languages:
  • Fluency in English (spoken and written).
  • Fluency in Spanish (spoken and written) is a plus.
  • Fluency in French (spoken and written) is a plus.

• Computer Skills – good skills in the use of/experience with:
  • Standard software packages (MS Office).

• Communication Skills:
  • Exemplary verbal and written communication skills that contribute to cohesive team efforts and decision making.
  • Ability to explain complex topics to a layman’s audience.
  • Strong presentation skills.
  • Ability to establish and maintain positive interpersonal relations.

• Others:
  • Experience in working in a multi-cultural, multi-lingual, global team.
  • Demonstrated cultural awareness and sensitivity to the diversity of values, views, and approaches to issues relevant to the FSC program by stakeholders around the world.
  • Ability to represent FSC through his/her work with exemplary personal and professional authority and conduct.

Terms and Conditions

• Location: Bonn, Germany.
• Working Hours: Full time - 40 hours per week.
• Duration of Employment: 2 years extension possible, subject to satisfactory performance.
• Starting Date: As soon as possible.
• Travel: Frequent travel is required.

How to Apply

• Please apply via our website by submitting your CV in English
• Please do not send any photos of yourself.
• The deadline for applications is 24 September 2023.

We will confirm receipt of your application. However, only candidates shortlisted for an interview will be further contacted and will receive notice of the outcome of the selection process. Should you not receive a confirmation of receipt please check your spam filter and if you cannot find it there contact us at recruitment@fsc.org

For FSC, inclusiveness and diversity are important values. As such, we welcome and encourage applications from all backgrounds and are entirely committed to consider all qualified applicants regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, ethnicity, age and disability.

Please be informed, that by applying for this position you automatically accept our Data Protection Information on processing your personal data.

We are looking forward to your application!