WWF Internships

WWF is one of the best places to intern if you are interested in international environmental affairs. See below.

WWF Internship Opportunities for AU Washington Semester Program Participants

World Wildlife Fund has a number of opportunities for motivated students interested in helping us protect biodiversity on Earth. In addition to learning about specific issues in conservation that related to individual internship projects, all interns will have the opportunity to attend brown bag lunches that cover a wide variety of topics and staff meetings to gain insight on how a large, international conservation organization operates. If you are interested in one or more of these positions, please send an email message indicating which positions you are interested in learning more about and why you are interested in those positions, along with your resume to Shaun Martin at shaun.martin@wwfus.org. Please be sure the filename of your resume is your own name and not “resume.”

Marine Conservation
The WWF Marine Conservation Science Program is seeking interns to help with background studies on interdisciplinary research that examines socioeconomic impact of marine protected areas (MPAs) at national and local levels, along with the ecological impacts that will drive fisheries effects. Our goal is to provide the information needed to empower policy makers to take actions that will enhance long-term fisheries productivity, natural and social capital, and food security. We are also accepting interns for help on projects examining MPA networks and connectivity.

Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities
WWF seeks two interns to help develop profiles of WWF priority program work with indigenous peoples and local communities. The work will involve helping to design a format for the profiles, reading and summarizing project information, interviewing program staff and writing up approximately 2 page profiles and case studies for each of the priority places where WWF works. In addition, the interns will provide some research assistance on community conservation, identifying relevant sources for guidance materials and seminars, for example.

Disaster Assistance and the Environment
WWF has recently launched a new partnership with the Red Cross that will help ensure that rebuilding efforts following the 2004 tsunami in Indonesia have minimal impact on the environment. This program is seeking an intern to research and write profiles on humanitarian aid agencies their programs, disaster response and environmental issues. The intern will also assist with further development of the parameters in the WWF green reconstruction guidelines.

Sustainable Aquaculture
WWF’s Sustainable Aquaculture Program will work to launch our WWF network aquaculture listserve by reviewing current aquaculture news and sending a weekly or bi-weekly email to the list with links to recent articles of interest, etc. If there is interest on the part of the intern, s/he will also help develop layout and content of a new website for our Aquaculture Dialogues. The intern will also conduct research on an aquaculture related topics. The specific topic will be decided together with the intern. Potential topics could include background research the environmental impacts of production of a given species (we have background reports completed for 12 species), the costs and benefits of closed containment finfish production, or the capacity of farmed shellfish to become established in the wild.

Climate Change
The WWF Climate Team seeks an intern to work on one or more of our current projects. These include compiling major climate change threats in Latin America, Africa, and/or Europe for a climate change vulnerability map and assistance with our Climate Witness projects, which highlight the impacts of climate change to ordinary people around the world and are used to educate the general public about climate change. Another possibility is to research current scientific literature for information about climate change impacts to global food security and for information about climate change impacts to global health. Finally, we are seeking assistance putting together a brochure highlighting our current project on the impact of climate change to hawksbill turtles (sea turtles) and/or our El Nino/Southern Oscillation publication – a small communications piece explaining what ENSO is and what it impacts globally.

Biofuels
WWF’s agriculture program is seeking an intern to help with research on biofuels. The intern will look at trends in biofuel production in use (where produced, what crops are used, where they are used, etc.). The interns will also look at the full greenhouse gas footprint of biofuels--do they really produce fewer greenhouse gases than conventional fuels when taking in account the full production cycle of biofuels?

Conservation Leadership
WWF’s Conservation Leadership Programs department helps build human and institutional capacity for conservation in developing countries of Africa, Asia, and Latin America. We are seeking an intern to assist us with a number of several projects. We also are collecting data on conservation academic programs around the world for an online database of training opportunities, particularly in Latin America. Finally, we the intern will help conceive and develop new online services for our alumni program. The intern will interact with alumni in Africa, Asia, and Latin America to help develop these services and write a description of the services that will appear in our semi-annual newsletter.

For any of these contact:

Shaun Martin
Director, Conservation Leadership Programs
World Wildlife Fund
1250 24th Street, NW
Washington, DC 20037-1193
Phone: 202.778.9608
Fax: 202.887-5293
shaun.martin@wwfus.org
www.worldwildlife.org