| This role forms part of an EU funded project called SELINA: Science for Evidence-based and sustainable decisions about Natural Capital that is led by the Leibniz University Hannover. SAERI is one of the project partners. SELINA project summary: The importance of biodiversity (BD) and healthy ecosystems and the services they deliver as increasingly been acknowledged. Policy initiatives, such as the EU BD strategies 2020 and 2030, IPBES, IPCC and CBD were launched to address BD, natural capital and related values. Research has created a knowledge base to better understand nature-human interactions that are at the base of ecosystem services (ES) delivery. The key aim of related actions is to provide robust information that can be harnessed to support protection, restoration and sustainable as well as climate-neutral use of ecosystems in the EU by 2030. Mapping and Assessment of ecosystems and their services (MAES) has provided the conceptual, methodological and data base for comprehensive assessments on different spatial scales, including the EU-wide assessment (Maes 2020) and assessments in EU member states. Knowledge and data for different ecosystem types (including protected and marine areas) are increasingly available. The next step is to integrate the different MAES components (ecosystem mapping, condition, ES accounting) and to enable the uptake of ES in decision making. Key challenges include the proof of BD-ecosystem condition – ES relationships and to link them to EU policies. The consortium brings together 50 organisations from all EU member states, association countries and EU overseas regions with stakeholders from various public and private sectors. The SELINA South Atlantic Project officer will lead on SAERIs partner input into the SELINA project. A key purpose of this will to be contribute to the interface between Science and Policy on the Falkland Islands and St. Helena. It will analyse a wealth of existing environmental datasets (most of which are spatial) to be able to provide evidence for high-level decision-makers in real time. This work builds on previous work on bridging the gap between Science and Policy in St. Helena that was delivered under the EU funded MOVE-ON project.  

Job Facts & Figures
 The main purpose of the role is to lead on SAERIs contribution to the SELINA project in general, and specifically contribute to •     Work Package 1: Coordination and project integration: Task: 1.4: Internal communication(1 month) •     Work Package 2 Stakeholder networking and decision-making (1 month) •     Work package 3:  Ecosystem type, biodiversity and condition mapping an assessment. Task 3.1: integrating data flows to map, assess and test ecosystem types; task 3.2: derive a minimum set of key ecosystem condition indicators per ecosystem type; task 3.3: Define the reference levels and conditions that describe the good condition of an ecosystem; task 3.4: Propose a scientifically robust decision framework to support the designation of ecosystem conditions levels (from favourable – good to unfavourable – not good – state. (3 months) •     Work package 4: Ecosystem services mapping and assessment: task 4.1: systematic review of ecosystem services model-related barriers to uptake in decision making (10 months) •     Work package 7: Dissemination and knowledge sharing: Task 7.2; Develop communication, dissemination and exploitation plans. •     Work package 8: Supporting evidence based public decision-making: Task 8.5: solutions for shared private-public use of evidence on ecosystems and Ecosystem services •     Work Package 10: Science-Policy-Society platform for guidance and development: Task 10.4: Guidance for the decision-making for different sectors. (1 month).  The post holder will be based in both the Falkland Island and St. Helena. It is envisaged that the following time will be spent on each island: September 2023 to July 2024 in the Falkland Islands (11 months): August 2024 to June 2025  on St. Helena (11 months).  

The main accountabilities of the role are to:

 

•         Lead on the implementation of SAERI’s input into the SELINA project work packages and tasks as outlined above, and prepare all SAERIs required input into project reporting. 

•         Work closely with the governments of the Falkland Islands (FIG) and St. Helena (SHG) to analyse spatial data as required for policy and decision-making.

•         Work closely with SHG and FIG to determine the spatial data outputs that are required to feed into upcoming or existing policy and decisions.

•         Produce the spatial data outputs required by SHG and FIG (determined above) using GIS software 

•         Ensure that all data and metadata is clean and added to the Falkland Islands and St Helena data portal and WebGIS.

•         Introduce new, or enhance the use of existing, tools to make spatial data readily available for decision-makers

•         Analyse existing spatial data sets to provide evidence for policy questions on St Helena and the Falkland Islands