The Table Mountain Fund of WWF-SA in collaboration with the C.A.P.E. Capacity Development Programme has awarded CAP the funds to support a mentored young professional for a 12-month internship, renewable for a further 12 months should funds be available and progress prove satisfactory.

This internship forms part of the TMF-C.A.P.E. Young Professionals Programme, which encourages partner institutions of C.A.P.E, such as CAP, to participate in supporting the orientation, growth and development of young, black historically disadvantaged conservation graduates through their transition from the formal learning context into the real world of conservation.

Click here to download young professional internship programme job advert and terms of reference

The programme will involve:

- A 2 month induction programme into the conservation sector and the host institution with CAP partners Conservation International and WWF-SA;

- A 2 month rotational programme through which the young professional is exposed to various career possibilities related to his / her areas of interest and qualification;

- A further period through which the young professional’s development is accelerated through performing key functional roles in the position framed within specific key performance areas. Ideally this will continue for a further 6-12 months depending on the performance of the individual and as funding allows.


Requirements for the position:

• A black historically disadvantaged graduate
• An honours degree is required, preferably in the natural sciences field. The candidate must have a keen interest in nature, conservation and climate change and have experience in communications.
• The ability to speak and write fluent English and at least one other South African language.
• The candidate should be able to perform research, write articles for press release, research reports and pieces for the CAP website.
• A South African citizen or residency permit.
• Possession of a valid, South Africa Code 08 driver’s license.
• The candidate must demonstrate aptitude for project management, be motivated and driven.
• Strong administrative skills are also a great benefit.



Details of the position:

The successful candidate will be based at Kirstenbosch Gardens in Cape Town and will be also exposed to quite a fair amount of travel to visit partners (in each province), project sites (across the country) and certain workshops. The project officer salary is for R6500 per month excl tax (which includes certain benefits which will be further discussed with the applicant). This is a one-year contract post. CAP may extend the post to a second year depending on the performance of the individual and conditional upon funding being secured for this second year.

The position is available from March 2010.

If you are interested in the post, please send a CV, a short motivation (2 paragraphs) in your email as to why you meet the requirements for this position, as well as any literature that you have written (not more than 4 pages), which has been published, to Jessica Thorn at jthorn@conservation.org by the 8th of February 2010.




The aims of the internship programme are to:

1. Support the integration of skilled personnel into the conservation and climate change arena, through a managed process of sequential exposure to the sector, key organisations, and the key content of the work program

2. Enhance skills and capacity of the individual in:

• Networking and communication,
• Planning and time management,
• Strategic thinking, thinking at a broad and focused level for collaboration,
• Computer skills,
• Administrative skills,
• Personal growth through performance evaluation.

3.Enhance specific work abilities in:

• Communication on conservation and climate change through media/ press release preparation and website development,
• Research and report writing and feeding information into communication materials, such as fact sheets,
• Project management in mitigation and adaptation and carbon reduction strategies ,
• Events management (workshop organisation) and planning for communications, awareness and networking.



The intern is to assist in meeting the long term objectives of CAP by supporting the CAP secretariat in their activities, whilst learning the skills relating to these activities. He/she will be exposed to activities relating to all the objectives, as well as be provided with specific tasks that link with individual objectives. There will be a large amount of overlap of their role in supporting the policy and research elements of CAP, as well as the communications and project support work.

Once having undertaken the induction process, the key activities of the intern will be to assist the CAP coordinator and project officer as follows:

General responsibilities

• Attend relevant meetings and workshops to learn more about what CAP as a partnership does in project implementation, policy and research.
• Gaining insight into climate change and biodiversity through training courses (in communications and project management, for example) as funds are available.
• Assist in administrative duties such as organisation of workshops, meetings, event coordination, and travel bookings, budget updates etc. The intern will perform administrative duties for the CAP partnership including taking minutes at meetings and processing documents.
• Develop and maintain a CAP database of contacts in the South African sector of biodiversity conservation.

Communications and awareness

• Develop a communication strategy for creating behaviour changes within CAP target audiences of the conservation sector, business and government together with the CAP project officer.
• Develop communication fact sheets.
• Update the CAP website with relevant factsheets, links to climate change and biodiversity related information, as well as updates on CAP projects and developments.
• Coordinate events with the CAP project officer to raise awareness of the CAP partnership and its key messaging around climate change and ecosystem services.
• Write articles for the CAP website on ecosystems, biodiversity and climate change issues and assist the project officer with articles for publication.
• Write at least 2 articles on particular topics related to climate change themes, such as water or sustainable land management, and on a particular project site visit.

Project support

• Attend two project and partner organisation site visits.
• Liaise with project developers in order to update reports for the CAP website and donors.
• Develop the project learnings and case studies in a way that they can be used by the conservation sector, business and government (such as fact sheets, policy pieces).
• Upload the CAP projects on the national climate change adaptation database sites.
• Strategise with the CAP Secretariat on ideas for expanding knowledge and understanding of climate change with biodiversity/ecosystem focus.

Policy and the enabling environment

• Provide background research to the CAP coordinator on a particular issue related to climate change policy and ecosystems. The information will then be fed into 2 fact sheets developed around ecosystem based adaptation and reduced emissions from deforestation and degradation.

Achieving carbon neutral status

• The intern will managing the CAP carbon neutral project where CAP partners are required to reduce the carbon footprint of their offices and organisations. This will involve writing a report on what each of the partners have achieved so far and what is still required, collating information from any energy audits that partners have done and providing motivation for implementation of carbon footprint reduction strategies. This may involve running one workshop for awareness-raising within a partner organisation.