Wilderness Fellow (Green Mountain National Forest)

Reports To: SWS National Program Director
Classification: Hourly
Location: Green Mountain National Forest, housing provided in Mount Tabor, VT
Duration: June 10th, 2024– December 13th, 2023 (6 month contract)
Time: Full Time (40hr/week), Seasonal
Salary: 19$/hr
Benefits: 1 earned personal day per month and paid federal holidays off. USFS Housing provided.
Initial Application Review Begins: 02/24/2024

Partners
The Society for Wilderness Stewardship (SWS) is a non-profit organization seeking to promote excellence in the professional practice of wilderness stewardship, science, and education to ensure the life-sustaining benefits of wilderness. In other words, we are a professional society working to set the standard for wilderness management.

The U.S. Forest Service (USFS) For more than 100 years, the Forest Service has brought people and communities together to answer the call of conservation. The USFS seeks to sustain the health, diversity, and productivity of the Nation’s forests and grasslands to meet the needs of present and future generations.

Program Overview
The Wilderness fellows program was created in order to add capacity in wilderness stewardship, thereby continuing important assessment work that has been underway since 2001, and fulfilling USFS Wilderness Stewardship Performance (WSP) elements. Wilderness stewardship performance is a comprehensive scoring system that requires each forest with a wilderness area to complete ongoing monitoring work, and evaluate trends in their wilderness through time. These trends indicate the capacity management and success at ‘preserving wilderness character’ as directed by the Wilderness Act.

As stated in Keeping It Wild 2: An Updated Interagency Strategy to Monitor Trends in Wilderness Character Across the National Wilderness Preservation System (Landres et. al, 2015), “the results of wilderness character monitoring provide [agency staff who manage wilderness day-to-day, and regional and national staff who develop wilderness policy and assess its effectiveness] some of the key data they need to improve wilderness stewardship and wilderness policy.” The report goes on to say that, “Implementing this monitoring strategy does not guarantee the preservation of wilderness character, but it informs and improves wilderness stewardship, and ensures managers are accountable to the central mandate of the 1964 Wilderness act – to preserve wilderness character.”

Position Overview
The Wilderness Fellow Program is seeking qualified candidates to fill a Wilderness fellow position working with the Green Mountain National Forest in Vermont. This fellow will be based out of a USFS bunkhouse in Mount Tabor, VT. Work is roughly 10% office based and 90% field based, and will require regular day trips and overnight trips into wilderness areas in the Green Mountain National Forest. This fellow will work closely with wilderness staff to carry out campsite monitoring and solitude monitoring for wilderness areas on the Green Mountain National Forest.

Additionally, this fellow will lead a crew of volunteers in the field, completing a variety of wilderness stewardship tasks across the forest. Experience working and traveling in backcountry settings is recommended. Transportation for field work will be provided or reimbursed. It is highly recommended that this employee have a personal car while living and working out of this area.

Primary Wilderness Fellow Responsibilities

• Attend one week training at Powell Ranger Station, near Missoula, Montana (travel provided).
• Work out of remote USFS locations, residing in USFS housing.
• Coordinate meetings with USFS personnel as needed
• Travel to and into wilderness areas regularly
• Lead a crew of volunteers or Interns in remote locations across the forest
• Review and understand monitoring protocol
• Implement and inventory monitoring protocols for tracking wilderness stewardship performance
• Add capacity by performing administrative tasks in wilderness areas
• Participate in regular conference calls
• Set and meet benchmarks and deadlines for data collection, meetings, and draft and final reports.

Key Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in a related field or work experience equivalent to a Bachelor’s degree.
• Educational background in Wilderness Management, Protected Area/Natural Resource Management, Recreation Resource Management, Conservation Social Science, Environmental Policy, Natural, Biological and/or Physical Science.
• Deep interest in wilderness/resource management and the US Forest Service.
• Outstanding written and oral communication skills.
• Experience in backcountry travel
• Excellent risk management and decision making skills
• Research skill and attention to detail and organization.
• Ability to work both independently and collaboratively on projects, high degree of initiative.
• Understanding and ability to use GIS software is a plus.
• Results-oriented with the ability to set and follow realistic goals and objectives.
• Flexibility to adapt when faced with changing needs and priorities.
• Ability to travel to training and remote field locations (travel provided), and to relocate if necessary (assistance not provided).

Essential Functions: Employees may be required to sit, stand, and lift objects up to 50 lbs. Employees may be required to travel and camp in the backcountry, and to drive or fly to remote project locations.

The Society for Wilderness Stewardship is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, national origin, marital status, age, disability, veteran status, genetic information, or any other protected status.