The Guatemala Climate Adaptation Specialist oversees all aspects of program implementation, including science, stewardship and stakeholders’ relations to reduce vulnerability to climate change in Guatemala with a geographic focus on the Western Highlands. Provides scientific leadership and support for TNC’s conservation planning work and establishes overall conservation and adaptation priorities in the region. Supplies technical and program support regarding changes in climate patterns, climate change impacts and adaptation, and Conservancy field operations. /he serves as the principle contact to government agencies, other conservation organizations, foundations and the academic community at the national level.
The Guatemala Adaptation Specialist will support communities, municipalities and local and national organizations of Guatemala to reduce vulnerability to climate change. S/he is tasked with achieving a broad climate adaptation approach founded of the needs of marginalized, rural populations of the Western Highlands of Guatemala. In general, the functions of the Guatemala Adaptation Specialist may include but are not limited to:
- Establishes the Conservancy as a major conservation and climate adaptation partner within Guatemala
- Defines vulnerability and adaptation priorities in Guatemala
- Leads and manages team which supports and improves natural resources management and adaptation efforts
- Builds strategic, scientific, and technical capacity in the field
- Develops key partnerships with public & private, national and international organizations in order to identify and resolve technical issues and to widely communicate solutions and best practices
- Develops innovative scientific methods, analyses, tools, and frameworks to address the natural system needs
- Engages local community support for climate adaptation efforts
- Negotiates complex and innovative solutions with government agencies and municipal staff and landowners to conserve and protect natural communities in order to improve the adaptation capacity
- Develops and implements watershed management plans and other activities to mainstream climate change
More specifically, the Guatemala Climate Adaptation Specialist may lead strategies including but not limited to:
- Developing a National Climate Change Adaptation Policy and Strategy for Guatemala by conducting vulnerability analysis, producing landslides and flooding maps, and conducting sector-based economic analysis.
- Developing integrated watershed management plans to promote best agricultural, grazing, and forest management practices to alleviate vulnerability and improve adaptation to climate change impacts.
- Modeling the possible transition to new crops or the movement of existing crops to the conditions of the future climate in the Western Highlands of Guatemala
- Implementing training processes for the staff of the departmental delegations and for local governmental and non-governmental organizations on vulnerability, climate change impacts and adaptation to climate change in the Western Highlands
- Establishing information systems related to climate change impacts available to communities, local government and civil society institutions.
- Establishing early warning systems in communities at risk in the Western Highlands, incorporating traditional knowledge and social networks, and linking them to national early warning systems.
- Collecting and systematizing traditional knowledge regarding adaptation and forecasting of climatic conditions in the Western Highlands
- Developing adaptation plans in priority municipalities, identifying threats and strategies for adapting local populations to threats.
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