*New job vacancy* – Lead Project Officer Norfolk: GRCF Restoring biodiversity: building a mink-free East Anglia

The Norfolk Rivers Trust

The post-holder will be a crucial member of the team working on the Green Recovery Challenge Fund (GRCF) project ‘Restoring biodiversity: building a mink-free East Anglia’. This project involves three Waterlife Recovery East partners (The Countryside Restoration Trust, The Suffolk Wildlife Trust as well as the Norfolk Rivers Trust, the employer for this post). Waterlife Recovery East (WRE) is an ambitious conservation project aiming to achieve a mink-free East Anglia. WRE is a partnership of fourteen conservation organisations, three of which are involved in this project. For more background visit the project website https://waterliferecoveryeast.org.uk/. The GRCF is a £40 million fund being delivered by the National Lottery Heritage Fund in partnership with Natural England and the Environment Agency.

The post-holder will play a leading role helping to protect water voles and other native wildlife by developing and upgrading the current mink control network in Norfolk such that it could ultimately become part of a unified trial eradication of mink from East Anglia.  You would provide guidance and support to staff coordinating groups of volunteers.  Fieldwork will be particularly focused on the catchments that ultimately drain into the sea at Great Yarmouth and Lowestoft but will involve travelling more widely.  The post would suit someone wishing to build a career in wildlife conservation.

This is a full-time, fixed term position for 15 months, starting in January 2021, finishing in March 2022.  The role will be home-based, preferably in east Norfolk.  The Project Officer will be expected use their own vehicle but receive a mileage rate for doing so.  The salary is £30,000 per annum.

Essential criteria:

• Own transport and full driving licence.
• An appropriate home location to deliver the project effectively.
• Experience of wildlife management to be able to be the leading deliverer of mink control in Norfolk.
• A good ‘team player’ with the ability to communicate and build good relationships with a wide range of partners volunteers and landowners.
• Enthusiastic and self-motivated: can work unsupervised, reliably delivering the requirements of a project.
• Prepared to work out of doors, alone in the countryside and, when necessary, outside standard office hours.

• Willing to humanely dispatch trapped mink.
• Degree in environmental subject or good wildlife knowledge and passion for conservation.
• Able to start at the beginning of January 2021.

Desirable criteria:

• Experience in the safe use of air guns and other weapons.

• Practical experience of the control of mink or other invasive species.

• Comfortable with the use of IT.

• Desire to foster continual improvement within the project.
• A knowledge of wildlife, farming, and country pursuits.

Full details and a job description can be found here.

**Apply with a CV and a covering email setting out your suitability for the role (max 500 words) to [email protected] by 17:00 on 18^th December 2020**