AmeriCorps VISTA - Collaboration Specialist (12 Months)

The VISTA Collaboration Specialist position is based at the New Mexico Forest & Watershed Restoration Institute (NMFWRI) in Las Vegas, NM. The NMFWRI’s mission is to promote adaptive management practices and to reduce the risk of high-intensity, catastrophic wildfires and other disturbances in New Mexico’s forests. Developing partnerships among interest holders is an important part of this mission. In forested areas in New Mexico, community-based collaborative conservation (CBCC) organizations coordinate forest management across large landscapes, aimed at building ecological resiliency to reduce the risk of forest disturbances. The NMFWRI Collaboration Program has an ongoing project to organize CBCC organizations into regional networks and link these networks statewide, with the goal of facilitating greater collaborative knowledge and capacity. Capacity building focuses on developing financial resources, increasing local knowledge about effective collaborative techniques, and training local residents in collaborative skills, including facilitation and mediation, conflict resolution, problem solving, leadership, active listening, and effective communication. All of this contributes to the creation of local restoration-based economic development, offering new opportunities to residents in the forestry sector and reducing poverty in rural New Mexico towns and villages. VISTA Collaboration Specialist will take a lead role in continuing the organization regional networks of CBCC groups to build collaborative capacity and promote adaptive management practices. The job requires some travel to CBCC meetings and training sessions, or work through videoconferencing software. The VISTA Collaboration Specialist will also promote a restorative economy locally and statewide, engaging in hands-on economic development in rural communities.

Member Duties : The VISTA will expand an existing network of community-based collaborative conservation (CBCC) organizations to build collaborative capacity and promote adaptive management practices that enhance ecological resilience. The VISTA will undertake the creation of a new network to extend the availability and accessibility of resources for CBCC groups in New Mexico. The VISTA will plug into statewide and multi-state efforts to develop and maintain financial and informational resources for CBCC organizations, and to assist in training programs on collaborative knowledge and skills. There are opportunities for creative network development and collaborative work and hands-on economic development work. The VISTA Collaboration Specialist should have general computer skills with some website creation skills. GIS skills are a plus, though not required. Familiarity with the Spanish language is helpful but not required. Service work is done in a hybrid work environment.