Description

The Stewardship Coordinator ensures The Vital Ground Foundation's conservation projects are adequately stewarded according to the organization's adopted Policies and Procedures through monitoring, development and implementation of land management plans and activities, oversight of contracts and agreements and effective engagement with partners on a variety of stewardship related activities that provide an enduring benefit to the public and wildlife.  Vital Ground is an LTA-accredited land trust that deploys various conservation tools including conservation easements, land acquisitions, habitat restoration, and support of local, state, federal and tribal conservation efforts throughout the Northern Rockies to accomplish its mission.  Under the direction of the Stewardship Manager, the Stewardship Coordinator also undertakes a variety of tasks to support the Conservation Program such as working with landowners on conservation easements and use of GIS software to prepare maps and reports. 

Requirements

Send resume and cover letter to bjohnson@vitalground.org. Deadline 03/25/26

Specific Duties

Monitoring and Stewardship

Maintain Vital Ground’s fee-title stewardship properties and support conservation easement stewardship in accordance with the organization's Policies and Principles. Primary duties include:

      Monitoring, maintenance and management of fee title properties in Montana and Idaho.

      Pursue and manage grant agreements and contracts for stewardship related activities.  

      Report and adequately document all fee title property monitoring activities. 

      Work collaboratively on the development and implementation of baseline resource documents and stewardship management plans and actions such as forest health improvement projects, wetland restoration activities and noxious weed control projects. 

      Conduct post-restoration monitoring on restored properties. 

      Engage project partners, stakeholders and the public about Vital Ground's stewardship activities. 

      Work on various GIS projects such as creating maps for management plans, baseline resource documents, and other program related projects. GIS work also includes collecting field data and translating it into ArcPro.

      Assist Stewardship Manager with monitoring of conservation easements activities including: conducting landowner interviews, physical inspections of properties and review of forest and grassland management plans.

      Manage fee title property access program and leases.

      Maintain trail camera monitoring program. 

Programmatic, Administration & GIS

      Work collaboratively with staff to pursue funding opportunities to support restoration projects on fee title properties. 

      Maintain the Lands and Conservation Program database files.

      Write occasional articles for Vital News or other outreach materials and occasionally present information and represent Vital Ground at meetings and conferences.

      Support program staff on acquisitions including grant applications, baseline resource report development, due diligence and transactional matters.

      Support Stewardship Manager with various tasks such as maintenance of hard filing system, electronic filing system, and other various projects.