Contract type: Fixed term – 2 years

Hours: Full Time (37.5 hrs)

Closing Date: 9th December

Interview Date: 16th December

Salary: Up to £35,085

Location: We have an agile working policy where staff can work from home, office or other agreed remote location, but location of employment will be the individual’s nearest Kent hub.

Globally and nationally wildlife is in steep decline. We appear to be reaching critical tipping points around the loss of biodiversity as well as around climate change, both being interlinked. Human society cannot prosper without wildlife and healthy ecosystems.

Kent’s wildlife needs to be restored to much higher levels. We can no longer allow common things to become rare. We can only do this by restoring large-scale habitat from degraded
land. Doing this will contribute to solving global problems. But we won’t be able to do this unless we publicly aspire to a higher level of impact and show that we can deliver this.

The Job
Kent Wildlife Trust (KWT), The Woodland Trust and the RSPB are the three major landowners in the Blean and have committed to work together in the development and delivery of a vision for the Wilder Blean Landscape through a shared role funded by the three organisations and employed via KWT. In total existing grants (PPL Dream Fund and Green Recovery Challenge Fund) provide close to £3m of investment into the Blean area over the next three years. They include plans for the re-wetting of areas and the introduction of large herbivores into the woods to impact areas of PAWs and to create a more dynamic assemblage of micro-habitats within the existing woodland ecosystem.

These approaches embrace the concepts of wilding and include the first use of European bison in a UK woodland grazing project, alongside Exmoor ponies, longhorn cattle and Ironage pigs. The reintroduction of beavers to enable re-wetting of several woodland areas is also under consideration. Longer-term, the project will serve as a springboard for the
reintroduction of pine marten into Kent, which will – in turn – enable the reintroduction of red squirrel, within the next decade.

The net predicted result of these reintroductions and the processes that they will drive is to turn the Wilder Blean Landscape into one of the most biologically diverse and abundant, naturally managed, landscapes in England.
We want to demonstrate what properly planned protected area complexes should be capable of delivering right across England, as well as becoming a reference point for others
on how to maximise conservation impact through application of wilding at scale. The ambition and scale of the current suite of Blean projects is partly predicated on demonstrating the proof of concept around these new approaches in achieving this longerterm goal. They will proactively seek to address the significant challenges to existing legislative, licensing and regulatory frameworks that have failed to enable the recovery of nature in the past.

Working with statutory agencies from the off will ensure that learning from these projects feeds back into emerging iterations of policy linked to the Government’s10-point plan and delivery of their 30% target. Working with local stakeholders, landowners, communities and site users will be essential to delivering the agreed vision. This is an exciting and pivotal role in the project, in which you will lead the development of a protected landscapes vision for the Wilder Blean Landscape. At the heart of this vision will be the restoration of natural processes, return of missing species, reconnection and wilding of the landscape.

We are therefore looking for a confident team player who can communicate a vision and enthuse others, engage with multiple stakeholders in supporting and delivering it, as well as
having demonstrable experience in coordinating strategic partnerships.

Contact details:
For an application pack and to apply, visit our website at www.kentwildlifetrust.org.uk.

For an informal discussion about this role, please contact jobs@wilderkent.org.uk

The Kent Wildlife Trust Group is Wild About Inclusion. To us, this means inspiring, empowering and engaging people from all backgrounds, cultures, identities and abilties, to change the natural world for the better.
It also means cultivating inclusive workspaces that are free from
discrimination, where differences are celebrated, everyone can be themselves and flourish, just like nature!