Beaver Reintroduction Manager

Full time (35 hours per week)  

2 year fixed term contract (with potential to extend) 

Closing date for applications: 3rd April 2024  

First interview: Provisionally 11th April 2024  

Second interview: Provisionally 22nd April 2024 

About Us  

The Royal Society of Wildlife Trusts (RSWT) is the central charity which supports the federation of 46 independent Wildlife Trusts working for nature’s recovery across the UK, Alderney and the Isle of Man. The Wildlife Trusts’ vision is of a thriving natural world, with abundant wildlife and healthy natural habitats playing a valued role in addressing the climate and ecological emergencies, and everyone inspired to take action for nature’s recovery. 

Collectively, The Wildlife Trusts have more than 900,000 members, employ 3,500 staff, look after over 2,300 nature reserves, operate 123 visitor and education centres and own 29 working farms. The role of RSWT is to ensure a strong voice for wildlife at a UK level and to provide strategic leadership, support and development for The Wildlife Trusts. We provide shared expertise in areas such as climate change, digital fundraising, nature-based solutions, policy and safeguarding. We facilitate UK-wide communities of practice to share learning and replicate successful approaches so that together we are more than the sum of our parts. We support the individual Wildlife Trusts to be a strong force for nature in their local areas and to work together to achieve even greater impact as a collective. 

The Wildlife Trusts are on a mission to bring about a people-powered nature and climate recovery by empowering people to take meaningful action for nature, and to create an inclusive society where nature matters to everyone, everywhere. We are ambitious in our desire not just to slow, but to reverse the declines in nature. Together we have developed a bold, new collective strategy which outlines our vision and the actions we will take to restore nature over the next eight years. 

Central to our strategy are our three goals which set out what we are striving to achieve by 2030 in pursuit of our vision of a thriving natural world. Goal 1 is to put nature into recovery with abundant, diverse wildlife and natural processes creating wilder land and seascapes where people and nature thrive. Goal 2 is to inspire people to take action for nature and climate, resulting in better decision-making for the environment at both local level and across the four UK nations. And Goal 3 is to enable nature to play a central and valued role in helping to address local and global problems, such as by helping tackle climate change and supporting wellbeing and education. 

Achieving these ambitious objectives means that we must develop new ways of working which increase the scale and impact of our work. Therefore, we have embarked on a programme of strategic transformations that are essential to achieving our goals, and which will result in a stronger and more effective Wildlife Trust movement for the long term. RSWT is leading the transformation programme across The Wildlife Trusts including in community organising, equality, diversity and inclusion, and funding nature’s recovery. The Wildlife Trusts have existed for over 100 years thanks to a strong membership base and traditional fundraising activities. 

The Wildlife Trusts are committed to applying for licences in England and Wales for wild beaver releases, at scale, alongside community consultation, so that beavers can be successfully returned to all major river catchments. To lead this new exciting and ambitious project, we are seeking a dedicated individual to turn this vision into reality by working with Wildlife Trusts to identify opportunities for wild release across England and Wales, coordinate and directly support participating Wildlife Trusts and others to submit licence applications and support community and stakeholder engagement. 

With the nature and climate crisis intensifying, wildlife recovery is essential and for this we need to see the return of some of Britain’s lost keystone species. For rivers and wetlands, the most important of these are beavers. Beavers are critical to restoring the natural function of rivers and wetlands with numerous benefits to society – not least natural flood management. By working in partnership, we want to support communities to live alongside these industrious mammals, which will play a crucial role in wetland wildlife recovery. 

The Wildlife Trusts have been at the forefront of piloting the release of beavers in enclosures to understand their ecological impacts. We have also led licensed wild beaver releases at Knapdale in Scotland and in Devon. The benefits and impacts of beavers are now well understood and we now need to see beavers return fully to our freshwater systems. Our aspiration is for beavers to return to all the main rivers systems of England and Wales, as part of a bigger vision for unpolluted freshwaters with wildlife restored. In turn, this recovery of nature will lead to lower water treatment costs and reduced flooding. 

About You 

You will be an enthusiastic individual with great relationship management skills, excellent communication skills and possess an in-depth knowledge of species reintroduction programmes and beaver ecology. 

You will be highly organised, collaborative, assertive and experienced project manager adept at keeping projects and budgets on track delivering against expectations. You will be a diplomatic communicator, able to facilitate and build relationships with a range of stakeholders. 

You will understand the needs of the Wildlife Trusts and the context in which they operate. 

The Wildlife Trusts value passion, respect, trust, integrity, pragmatic activism and strength in diversity. Whilst we are passionate in promoting our aims, we are not judgemental and are inclusive. We particularly encourage applications from people who are underrepresented within our sector, including people from minority backgrounds and people with disabilities. We are committed to creating a movement that recognises and truly values individual differences and identities. 

RSWT take our Safeguarding responsibilities extremely seriously. Please look at the website to read our commitment statement. 

As a Disability Confident employer, we are committed to offering an interview to anyone with a disability that meets all the essential criteria for the post. Please let us know if you require any adjustments to make our recruitment process more accessible. 

This role maybe subject to a DBS check.