Southern Fire Portal

The Tennessee Chapter of The Nature Conservancy seeks a talented conservation-minded forester to help build a rapidly emerging Forest Conservation Program. The forester leads forest management planning and communications with private and public landowners, and implementation of forest inventories, certification and harvesting operations across the Chapter’s Forest Conservation Program. He/She assists with developing and monitoring carbon projects to support the Working Woodlands Program and our future climate resilience strategies. She/he leads operations and management of the Tennessee Chapter’s flagship forest conservation preserve, the Bridgestone Nature Reserve at Chestnut Mountain.

The Restoration Program Coordinator facilitates and coordinates several ongoing grassland and forest restoration programs in the upper and mid Texas gulf coast region. The Program Coordinator conducts data collection in area research projects, participates in and helps develop preserve stewardship activities such as invasive species treatments at TNC owned Preserves in order to maintain the system’s integrity and function as a high-quality representation and viable seed source. The Program Coordinator also participates fully in TNC’s fire program, is responsible for maintaining equipment and facilities at the Texas City Prairie Preserve, operating heavy machinery and equipment, and assisting with the coordination of volunteers in restoration and stewardship activities. S/he must be able to secure and maintain Wildland Fire Fighter certification – The Nature Conservancy has adopted the Work Capacity Test (WCT) as the method for assessing fitness for fire qualification.  The person selected for this position is required to pass the arduous WCT within 30 days of starting employment. The Restoration Program Coordinator will work closely with other staff members in the Grasslands Program and statewide Conservation and Science programs.

In memory of David A. Tice, a former Board of Trustees member and visionary forester who was instrumental in many of our conservation efforts, The Nature Conservancy has created a science and stewardship annual internship program.  This year, the Dave Tice Science Technician will assist with southern pine savannah habitat management, fire management, fire effects monitoring, and preserve stewardship, within TNC’s Virginia Pinelands Program.  Position will be primarily based at Piney Grove Preserve, an exemplary site for pine savanna management and the northernmost population of federally endangered red-cockaded woodpeckers.
 

The Director of Forest Management establishes the Conservancy as a major leader in forest restoration efforts in Alabama, defines conservation priorities and long-term conservation strategies, builds strategic, scientific, and technical capacity in the field and develops key partnerships with public and private organizations to identify and resolve technical issues and to widely communicate solutions and best practices. S/he develops innovative scientific methods, analyses, tools and frameworks to address the natural system needs, engages local community support for local conservation efforts, and negotiates complex and innovative solutions with government agencies and landowners to conserve, restore and protect natural communities.

This survey is intended for organizations that either do not currently have prescribed fire insurance or their current liability coverage is not sufficient.

POSITION PURPOSE: To expose candidates to a wide variety of functions within the Company, to include botany, wildlife, fisheries, timber cruising, forest engineering, sales, timberland services, forestry, and operations.Designed to provide an opportunity to gain an understanding of the processes and roles within Green Diamond at multiple locations within the company.

Text of the International Association of Wildland Fire (IAWF) statement:

Climate change has already had significant consequences in the global wildfire reality, affecting citizens as well as the global wildland fire community. Many key issues of importance to the IAWF - including firefighter and civilian safety, fire management expenses, changing weather patterns, natural role of fire, fire regimes and ecosystem succession, as well as the wildland urban interface - all require recognition of the role of climate change.

Globally, we regularly see new reports about the “worst”, “largest”, “most expensive”, and “deadliest” fires and fire seasons. In 2019 and 2018, striking headlines read “Arctic on Fire” (Sweden, Russia, Greenland, Canada and Alaska), and the most expensive and largest fire years were recorded in 2018 in California and British Columbia, respectively, breaking the previous records set in 2017. The Camp Fire (CA, 2018), Attica Greece (2018), Black Saturday Australia (2009), and Portugal (2017) fires were all ranked amongst the top 11 deadliest fires in the last 100 years.

Under current climate change scenarios, fire regimes will change in terms of increases in burned area, severity, fire season length, frequency, and ignitions from lightning. Many parts of the world have already experienced an increase in record breaking temperatures and recurring droughts that have led to shifts in wildland fire. There is already evidence of climate-driven fire regime change in the Northern Hemisphere upper latitudes with fire risk increasing in non-traditional fire-prone countries. The consequences of human actions are here today, not in some distant future, and these are alarming and, most important, escalating.

The IAWF encourages all countries to emphasize increased international fire training and to implement easier cross-border sharing of professional fire management resources for suppression and prescribed fire opportunities. These will lessen the irrationally heavy burden any single country will have to carry to manage extreme fire seasons. Homes and communities must be better planned and built, so they are increasingly fire resistant and more adapted to natural disasters of all types. Health impacts of fires have long-term consequences, not only those that are immediate from the flames but also those from smoke and toxins, and these must be considered when planning and managing for future wildland fires. Wildfires and smoke do not recognize borders. As the global community tries to manage the new wildfire challenges, it is incumbent on everyone to prepare to support international neighbours in protecting lives and communities from fires and their impacts.

IAWF Vice-President Toddi Steelman recently said in Wildfire magazine (August 2019) that “Recent extreme weather events have catalysed public belief in, and concern about, climate change, and boosted public support for government actions to reduce its harmful impacts. This gives us a window of opportunity when conditions are right to make great strides on climate if we are strategic about it.” This window of opportunity requires people having the knowledge and political will to act now. Our global scientific community needs to publicly share knowledge learned about patterns of extreme wildland fire and weather, as well as how climate change is associated with these patterns. Our global fire management community needs to leverage its credibility to share its experiences about how climate change and its role in extreme weather is playing out in their day to day work environments. Connecting extreme weather events to real on-the-ground consequences can help more people understand how climate impacts are affecting us all.