Conservation Technology Officer

Reports to: Law Enforcement Pillar Head 

Positions Managed:  N/A 

Location: Ishasha Sector, QEPA, Country Program/Sector:   WCS Uganda 

Position Type: Full-time 

Scope/Capacity: Site-Ishasha Sector, Uganda 

Coordinates with: Site Manager Ishasha Sector, Conservation Law Enforcement Advisor, Uganda Wildlife Authority, Community Conservation Department, Biodiversity Management Department, Logistics service, Uganda Country Team, APAMU and other regional or global thematic teams (e.g. Conservation Technology). 

Job Profile 

The Conservation Technology Officer will be responsible for providing cross-departmental IT, radio/satellite communications, networking, support to the field teams and our partners, particularly Uganda Wildlife Authority. You will work proactively with colleagues in WCS and UWA to introduce and develop technological solutions that ensure effective conservation communications and decision-making, strengthen law enforcement operations, research and monitoring of lions and other wildlife species. The conservation technology officer will support the carnivore conservation program to develop a fully functional conservation technologies and communications center, including radio/satellite communications, internet infrastructure, SERCA (i.e., Integral of Earth Ranger and SMART) in Ishasha sector that is scalable to the entire park; Ensure that QEPA staff demonstrate a higher level of Technology and GIS ability through training activities; geospatial products such as maps and analyses produced to support conservation planning; and a set of communications Standard Operating Procedures developed and implemented. 

Major Responsibilities 

• Support the implementation of conservation technology activities in Ishasha Sector (QEPA) including, maintaining the LoRa, radio and satellite communications systems (e.g., lion satellite collars, VHF system, and Garmin, Thuraya and SMART devices, Solar systems, WIFI, etc.) and work towards fully integrated conservation technology solutions for the QEPA. 

• Lead efforts to enhance the collection and management of operational law enforcement (LE) and ecological monitoring data.  

• Provide technical support to WCS and UWA in the use of SERCA and other conservation technologies including, overseeing data management, integration, security and the development and implementation of conservation technology standard operating procedures. 

• Deliver practical training and mentoring on SMART, EarthRanger, GIS, mobile data collection, and other relevant conservation technologies and tools including Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), and other data collection tools such as wildlife camera traps, One-Health SMART Toolkit, KoBo, ODK. 

• Support the community conservation team to develop data collection templates in SERCA, ODK, and KoBo tools. 

• Acquire, create and maintain GIS dataset and relevant spatial information and support the production of high-quality maps and spatial analysis to inform conservation efforts in Ishasha Sector and QEPA. 

• Support the management, inventory, and maintenance of LE-related IT and conservation technology equipment, identify new technological opportunities, and outline proposals for their introduction. 

• Contribute technical inputs to project work plans, reports, donor deliverables, and monitoring frameworks and participate in meetings, workshops, and technical working groups as requested.