GIS Intern with World Resources Institute

The World Resources Institute has an opening for a GIS intern to jointly support the Governance Center’s Land and Resource Rights project and the Forest Program’s Global Forest Watch initiative.  Please apply through the link on the WRI website: https://careers-wri.icims.com/jobs/1670/gis-intern/job.  All applicants must apply online to be considered.  A brief description is below. Thanks!

Overview
The World Resources Institute (WRI) seeks an enthusiastic and dedicated individual with excellent technical, analytical, and communication skills for a short-term, full-time, paid internship position to support the Governance Center’s Land and Resource Rights project (http://www.wri.org/our-work/project/land-and-resource-rights) and the Forest Program’s Global Forest Watch (http://www.globalforestwatch.org) initiative. WRI’s Land and Resource Rights (LRR) initiative aims to ensure secure property rights for rural people and the urban poor. Operating across Latin America, Africa, and Asia, our work focuses on connections between land and equitable access to forests, food, and water. Global Forest Watch (GFW) is a dynamic online forest monitoring and alert system that empowers people everywhere to better manage forests.

For the Land and Resource Rights project, the GIS Intern for will be responsible for collecting and preparing geo-referenced data to build up content for a global map of community land and natural resource rights, with particular focus on Latin America. Specific duties will include translating written descriptions of land tenure arrangements from official documents into geospatial data using GIS. Strong ArcGIS skills are required and knowledge of written Spanish is preferred. Other duties include conducting research and outreach to collect additional documents and/or datasets from NGO partners and other organizations to further contribute to the global database of community lands. In addition, the GIS intern may be asked to conduct analyses of the relationship between geo-referenced community and indigenous lands and forest cover change, with a particular focus on Brazil. Interest and experience in land tenure arrangements as they relate to human and environmental well-being is a plus.

For Global Forest Watch, the intern for will be responsible for preparing data and developing content for the website. Duties will include editing GIS datasets and attribute tables for inclusion on the site, assisting with analyses using forest change data, writing data set descriptions and metadata, and assisting with blog posts and other social media. The intern will also help carry out GFW’s data acquisition strategy, including researching data availability, developing data sharing agreements, and processing data for inclusion in the GFW platform. 


Responsibilities
The intern will work in the following areas:

• Collaborate with Land and Resource Rights GIS Analyst to prepare GIS datasets for the map of community land and natural resource rights
• Translate written descriptions of land tenure arrangements from official documents into GIS datasets, particularly for Central America
• Work with the Global Forest Watch Mapping & Data Manager to acquire and process new datasets for the GFW platform
• Prepare dataset descriptions, metadata, and documentation of methodology
• Conduct spatial analyses and generate statistics
• Conduct desk research and outreach to collect additional documents and/or datasets related to community land rights or forests in countries around the world
• Produce mini-analyses and maps for blog posts or other social media
• Support other activities as needed

Qualifications

• Master’s degree or graduate student preferred
• Ideal candidate will be a graduate student in geography, geographic information systems (GIS), environmental science, forestry or other relevant field
• A passion for the environment
• Strong GIS skills and expertise in using Esri ArcGIS 10.x software; experience in ArcGIS Server a plus. Experience in mapping platforms including Google Maps, Google Earth, Google Earth Engine, or CartoDB a plus
• Education or experience in remote sensing a plus
• Strong English writing and communication skills and excellent academic performance
• Familiarity with or working experience on indigenous and community land rights issues or forest and land use change a plus
• Programming or web-development skills a plus
• Proven research skills
• Proficiency in written Spanish preferred; other language skills a plus
• Strong interpersonal skills and the ability to work in a team
• Excellent organizational and time management skills

Salary: This is a paid intern position with an hourly rate based on experience.
Duration: 3 months, with potential for extension
Location: Washington, DC
Qualified applicants should apply online at www.wri.org/careers. All applications must be submitted online through this career portal in order to be formally considered. 

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