Average temperatures and sea level are projected to rise by 2oC and more than 100 cm, respectively, over the following decades. These events have decimated a large majority of fringing coral reefs, an ecosystem that plays a fundamental role in food provision, shoreline protection, and enhanced water quality for the majority of coastal developing countries. Globally, natural resource managers are facing growing challenges from multiple and cumulative stressors that are increasing the vulnerability of ecosystems and societies that depend on their goods and services. While marine conservation and management practices have focused mostly on threat reduction (e.g. reducing overfishing and pollution), managers and agencies talk with increasing frequency about safeguarding or building resilience – i.e. supporting ecosystem processes that lower sensitivity, promote recovery and enhance adaptive capacity. One rationale for such a shift in management approach is the increasing pressures from climate change, a global driver that compromises the health of many ecosystems, and which increases the need for urgent and effective local-scale management actions.

Specifically, Project REGENERATE – Reef Generate Environmental and Economic Resilience for Atoll Ecosystems - has been developed to showcase and address coral reef issues in the Maldives. The overall aims of this project are to:

• Improve access to science and technology for decision-making and establishing policy framework for increasing resilience to climate change.
• Increase Stakeholder capacity to measure and monitor and adapt to climate stresses through education, training, and outreach.
• Strengthen governance in support of decentralised management for more resilient ecosystems
• Establish sustainable financing mechanisms to support climate resilient marine management.

The Marine Spatial Analyst will lead on the Geographic Information System (GIS) initiatives and perform spatial analyses to support the needs of IUCN and Project REGENERATE and use conservation planning as a decision support tool for natural resource management and adaptation. The Marine Spatial Analyst will also act as the GIS technical lead and point of contact for GIS specific and related matters of IUCN to coordinate and collaborate with the partners of Project REGENERATE and external partners. The key tasks performed by the Marine Spatial Analyst will include:

1. Acting as the focal point for all GIS initiatives and coordinate with partners of Project REGENERATE and external partners.
2. Managing and overseeing technical assistance to establish conservation priority areas for the Government of Maldives.
3. Obtaining and managing necessary GIS resources.
4. Facilitating necessary user training from outside IUCN.
5. Hiring or recommending the hiring of GIS staff and related personnel.
6. Conduct training for GIS staff and interns for GIS related work.
7. Supervising, monitoring and evaluating the work of GIS staff.
8. Coordinating GIS-related activities with other personnel of IUCN.
9. Assisting and guiding policy-making regarding GIS matters.
10. Recommending and where appropriate developing GIS and related training programmes.
11. Coordinating the acquisition of new spatial data and supervising the integration of these data into GIS formats.
12. Developing, maintaining and updating spatially explicit datasets.
13. Developing spatial analysis methodologies to analyse Public Participation GIS datasets.
14. Evaluate and report on global datasets to support effective management plans.
15. Performing spatial analysis and creating information products from the GIS and related software.
16. Providing support for cartographic design and high quality map production for Project REGENERATE purposes.
17. Providing technical and project management support to the Acting CTO when and where necessary.
18. Providing technical support in writing and reviewing policy documents as requested by the Acting CTO.
19. Evaluate, diagnose and troubleshoot overall operations of computing and information technology functions and recommend enhancements for IUCN.
20. Perform other duties as may be assigned.