Landscape Coordination and Forest Restoration Specialist

The Landscape Coordination and Forest Restoration Specialist will serve as the field-based focal point for the AFR100 Support Programme in the Monduli – Karatu landscape, coordinating partner activities, providing technical guidance on Forest Landscape Restoration (FLR), monitoring implementation, and facilitating collaboration among stakeholders to ensure coherent and technically sound interventions aligned with restoration priorities.

Responsibilities

• Coordinate field-level activities across all service providers operating in the Monduli – Karatu landscape, ensuring coherence, complementarity and avoidance of duplication across interventions.
• Organize and facilitate regular landscape-level coordination meetings and support effective coordination among service providers and other landscape stakeholders.
• Establish and maintain effective working relationships with district authorities, designated local government focal points, communities and Forest and Farm Producer Organizations (FFPOs).
• Facilitate collaboration and joint problem-solving among service providers, communities and local authorities, and support timely resolution of implementation challenges.
• Maintain a strong field presence and participate in key programme activities including restoration bootcamps, sensitization sessions, coordination visits and other priority field events requiring technical oversight or follow-up.
• Support communities and producer groups in accessing the programme’s grant mechanisms, including sensitization on grant requirements and support with the application and platform submission process.
• Provide technical guidance on Forest Landscape Restoration (FLR) approaches and ensure restoration interventions are consistent with priorities identified through ROAM and relevant technical guidance.
• Support service providers in selecting and applying restoration approaches and techniques appropriate to specific ecosystems, land-use contexts and local restoration objectives.
• Conduct regular field visits and site checks to verify the quality, technical soundness and progress of activities implemented by service providers.
• Ensure restoration interventions remain aligned with agreed landscape restoration priorities, technical standards and approved workplans.
• Identify implementation challenges, technical risks and deviations from agreed approaches at an early stage and recommend practical corrective actions to the project team and relevant service providers.
• Follow up on agreed corrective actions and provide technical support to service providers to improve implementation quality.
• Support the M&E Specialist by helping verify that information reported by service providers accurately reflects implementation progress and results observed on the ground.
• Follow up with service providers on delayed, incomplete or unclear information and facilitate timely transmission of required inputs to the project M&E function.
• Flag discrepancies, implementation gaps or emerging issues identified during field visits to the Project Coordinator, M&E Specialist and other relevant colleagues for follow-up.
• Provide regular field-level updates and contextual information on restoration activities, implementation progress and emerging results across the landscape.
• Work with the Project Coordinator, Communication Specialist and other relevant colleagues to identify and share good practices, lessons learned, success stories and noteworthy field developments for documentation and visibility.
• Facilitate access to relevant field information, stakeholders and intervention sites to support monitoring, documentation, communication and learning activities led by the responsible project colleagues.
• Perform any other duties as specified by the supervisor in support and furtherance of the FAO mission goals and strategic framework.

Requirements

• Advanced university degree in Forestry, Natural Resources Management, Environmental Science, Agroforestry, Land Restoration, Ecology or a closely related field.
• At least five (5) years of relevant professional experience in Forest and Landscape Restoration (FLR), sustainable land management, forestry, agroforestry, natural resource management or related field-based programmes.
• Working knowledge of English and fluency in Swahili.
• National of the United Republic of Tanzania.
• Demonstrated experience coordinating or supervising field-based activities involving multiple partners, service providers, local authorities and communities.
• Practical experience providing technical guidance on restoration approaches, including areas such as assisted natural regeneration, agroforestry, tree establishment, rangeland restoration, soil and water conservation or other relevant FLR practices.
• Experience working directly with rural communities, producer organizations and local government authorities.

Skills

• Landscape Restoration
• Sustainable Land Management
• Agroforestry
• Natural Resource Management
• Land Restoration
• Assisted Natural Regeneration
• Tree Establishment
• Rangeland Restoration
• Soil and Water Conservation
• Field Coordination
• Technical Guidance
• Stakeholder Collaboration
• Community Engagement
• Programme Monitoring
• Supervision of Field Staff
• Forest Management
• Environmental Sciences
• Project Coordination

Languages

English, Swahili