Each year since 1981, WCMC has offered placements to a group of students in a variety of programme areas. The placements have been so successful that several of the students have found career paths with us or with our partners.

• This year we are planning to hold interviews during March with a view to the selected placements taking up post in August or September.
• Once you have looked at the information below and decided that you would like to apply, check with your Placement Officer and send me a letter of application together with your CV to:
  
  Denise Rowllings,
  Head of Personnel, WCMC, 219 Huntingdon Road, Cambridge, CB3 0DL
  Tel: 01223 277314 Fax: 01223 277136
  Email: denise.rowllings@wcmc.org.uk

To arrive no later than: Friday 17 March 2000

INFORMATION FOR STUDENTS

Student Placement at WCMC

Since 1981 WCMC has been offering a one-year placement to students doing courses in environmental sciences. Each student works as part of a small team throughout the year, participating fully in the work of that unit. A supervisor is appointed for each student.

The advantages to the student of such a placement are:

• Development of knowledge in particular subject areas
• Experience of key issues on the international conservation agenda
• Work experience (including office practices, teamwork, responsibility, quality control, meeting deadlines and so on)
• New or improved computer skills
• Products and experience that can reinforce future job applications
• Preparation of papers and reports that may be circulated outside WCMC

WCMC benefits greatly from the contribution that the students make to the Centre’s activities, and their work is integrated fully into the WCMC programme. We do our best to provide the opportunity for students to carry out projects in which they are interested, and which will provide them with the practical skills and outputs that will support their future education and careers. Student projects have been published by the Centre, or incorporated in publications, and the results of many are distributed widely within the conservation sector.

A year’s experience in WCMC places students in a strong position to apply for vacancies in the Centre upon completion of their degrees, and at least six of the junior research staff appointed to work in the Centre over the last few years have been ex-students. Other former students have gone on to take professional posts in the conservation and development community, both in the UK and overseas, building upon the solid foundation provided by the Centre. Prospective students are encouraged to visit the Centre, and to talk with other students about the work they are doing, the office "environment", and life in Cambridge.

WCMC is a charity with very limited resources and can therefore only take students who are able to support themselves, although this is supplemented to cover holiday periods. WCMC is fortunate that in 1999/2000 the costs of employing a total of six students has been borne by sponsorship money from The Salters Company and from LASMO. This sponsorship money has then been given to the Student Support Services which is a trust fund that administers the money on behalf of students. The students have then each received a monthly tax-free donation from SSS.

Student Placement in 2000-2001

Student work in the following areas is anticipated in 2000-2001, although this list is not fixed and students with particular projects in mind are welcomed.

Forests

• Developing the forest and poverty mapping interactive map server
• Collecting forest cover data, with particular emphasis on plantations
• Collecting and analysing information on forest condition
• Reviewing articles on climate change and updating the forests in flux database
• Improving the forest programme web-site
• Carrying out any other work of importance to the forest programme

Marine

• Mapping coral reefs, mangroves, sea grasses and other coastal habitats
• Work on the trade in marine organisms
• Data compilation, e.g. coral diseases
• Handling information requests on marine issues.
• Reviewing threats and protective measures applied to marine resources.

Protected Areas

• Private and indigenous reserves
• Tourism and protected areas – a review of information on protected area visitation
• International networks of protected areas
• World Heritage – preparation of site sheets for WH nomination

Information Services

Provision of conservation information services, particularly to the education and media sectors, working closely with WCMC’s Information and Marketing Coordinator. WCMC provides information services to promote conservation worldwide and promote the work of WCMC.

Plants and Wildlife Trade

A placement is offered for the academic year 2000/2001 to provide support to the Plants Programme and Wildlife Trade Programme at WCMC. This will suit a student who is interested in gaining experience in a variety of issues relating to plant conservation and sustainable use. The student should be competent in, or eager to learn Word and Excel and should be able to write clearly. The student will spend some time working with the Global Threatened Plants Database at WCMC, both entering data and running queries in response to requests for information on threatened plants from around the world. An interest in learning how to use a large complex database is therefore essential. The student will be expected to contribute to all the activities of the Plants Programme and the Wildlife Trade Programme, to liase with staff throughout WCMC and to host visitors to WCMC as needed. The exact workload will depend on the projects currently active throughout the students placement. At present, it is anticipated that students may be asked to work on the areas listed below:

• Development of information on species protected by international legislation (CITES and EU Wildlife Regulations)
• Development of conservation profiles for heavily traded species and economically important plant species

Animals

• Freshwater biodiversity: comparing systems and taxa
• Mapping threatened animals
• Work on marine turtle nesting sites
• Biodiversity indicators

Species and Biodiversity

• Compilation of inventories of species in protected areas
• Development of indicators of conservation status, and the pressures on biodiversity
• Compilation of conservation bibliographies in key areas
• The impact of trade bans on species listed under the Convention on International Trade In Endangered Species
• Using species and ecosystem data to develop policy-relevant indicators of environmental change.

Student Placement 1999-2000

A list of students who have been placed at the Centre over the last few years and the projects they have carried out follows. Salters’ students are marked with an asterisk(*) and Lasmo’s student with a +.

1998-99
Mark Atterton+	Coventry	Assisting the Information Officer in the provision of conservation information services, acting as the first point of contact for such enquiries.
Rachel Bishop+	Aberystwyth	Assisting the Plant programme, working on the assessment of trade in succulent plants among other projects.
Charles Green+	Bangor	Assisting the Forest programme, working on the Forests Stewardship Council database, standardising reporting on biodiversity, WWF European Gap Analysis among others.
Chantal Hagen*	Manchester	Assisting in the Marine and Coastal programme. The projects included Mapping the reefs of the Red Sea, setting up a database on seagrass distribution, working on an internet site providing data on the distribution of turtles in the Indian Ocean.
Amanda Smith+	Hertford	Assisting the Protected Areas programme, working on projects for WCPA and UNESCO, including a project on Endemic Bird areas and World Heritage Sites.
Geoff Waite*	Kingston	Assisting the GIS team, working on projects such as the impact of Trans-European road networks on nature conservation.
1997-98
Mark Chapman	De Montefort Leicester	Assisting the Information Officer in the provision of conservation information services, acting as the first point of contact for such enquiries.
Kevin Holohan*	South West Bristol	Carrying out a feasibility study and analysis of the protection status of European forests and the gaps in protected area coverage. Researching and evaluating the conservation status of trees.
Joanna Hugues*	East London	Supporting the marine programme in ongoing projects, digitising maps, and updating the marine information in the BML.
Janina Jakubowska	Sheffield (graduate)	Reviewing literature and contacting expert sources to gather and collate freshwater fish diversity in the world’s major catchment asins
Oliver Jarrett	South West Bristol	Compiling information on protected areas for distribution on the WEB Updating information on transfrontiers of protected areas and environmental disasters
Gemma Smith+	Plymouth	Assisting with the project on Conservation and Sustainable Management of Trees, reviewing and entering data on palms and endemic Malaysian trees. Working on the Global Forest Information Service and other Forest data on the Website.
1996-97
Rachel Cook	East London	Mapping critically endangered mammals and orangutans
Kerry Curran	Greenwich	Assisting the Information Officer, compiling information in response to requests from the public and scientific community
Victoria Fletcher	Greenwich	Managing data for the Indo-Malaya region and compiling protected area data sheets for the Philippines
Sally Graham	Bradford	Managing data for the UN List of Protected Areas and researching into lists of coastal species of the Mediterranean researching into lists of coastal species of the*
Susannah Hirsh*	Cardiff	Mapping of coral reefs for ReefBase
Tim Quinton	Bangor	Compiling statistics on forest cover; digitising logging Concession maps; finding co-ordinates for cloud forest maps
Simon Reeve*	Liverpool	Compiling data on Chinese medicinal plants
1995-96
Stephen Grady	Coventry	Mapping wetlands of international importance (Ramsar Sites)
Alastair Greenfell*	West of England	Coral reef mapping for ReefBase with ICLARM. GlobalCoral reef and mangrove poster map
Andrea Leppard	Greenwich	Full time assistant to the Information Officer
Angela Barden*	East London	Compilation of 1996 IUCN Red List of Threatened Animals
Carol Boyes	Coventry	Study on the impact of wildlife trade bans
Donna Smith	Hertfordshire	Compilation of IUCN Red List of Threatened Plants
Justin Ellis	Coventry	Assisting on forest cover, indicators and cloud forests
Ronan Smith	Greenwich	Study on private initiatives in protected areas. Mapping of World Heritage Sites
1994-95
Katie Fuller	Coventry	Review of information on protected areas of the Arctic, a Contribution to the programme on the Conservation of Arctic Flora and Fauna
Neil Jenking*	De Montfort	Compiling information on legally protected and threatened Plants of Europe
David Kirk	Coventry	Compiling information on globally threatened plants
Ian Phillips	Cardiff (Wales)	Major update and expansion of marine component of WCMC’s Protected Areas Database
Jessica Pullen	De Montfort	Mapping of marine turtle distributions
Carolyn Slicer	Hertfordshire	Full time assistant to the Information Officer
Ivor Wheeldon*	Hertfordshire	Mapping coral reefs, focus on Indian Ocean Islands
1993-94
Caroline Brown	Coventry	Work on investment in conservation in developing Countries
Andrea Cole	Hertfordshire	Freshwater fishes: a database of lake endemics
Berry D’Arcy	Hertfordshire	Full time assistant to the Information Officer
Susan Hawley	Cardiff (Wales)	Review of marine protected areas in the Caribbean
Annabel Lee	Cardiff (Wales)	Coastal sensitivity mapping
Daniella Pitts	Coventry	Mapping of marine turtle distributions
Tony Rodgers	Coventry	Compilation of information for a "Biosphere Encyclopedia"
Johanna Sidey	Hertfordshire	Major input to a review of threatened plant species in Euorpe and to a report on threatened plant species of the world
1992-93
Laura Battlebury	De Montfort	Compiling information on protected areas, Middle East
Neil Cox	Hertfordshire	Freshwater fishes: a GIS database of lake endemics
Vanessa Heywood	De Montfort	Manufactured wildlife products in international trade
Mark Lewis	Coventry	Review of national parks and reserves on international Borders
Lucy Smith	Coventry	Mapping of marine turtle distributions
Maria Toal	De Montfort	Plant conservation priorities in Eastern Europe
1991-92
Robert Cubey	De Montfort	Status reports on threatened animals
Trudie Dockerty	Hertfordshire	Review of trade in shark fins; study on CITES in EU
Susan Frade	Coventry	Compiling information on protected areas, Malaysia
Karen Headley	Hertfordshire	Review of trade in CITES Appendix I animals; assistance In review of proposals for 8th CITES Conference of Parties
John Howland	Coventry	Review of endemic reptiles; contribution to GlobalBiodiversity
James Lucas	Hertfordshire	Status reports for threatened plants
Caitlin Williams	Hertfordshire	Compiling information on protected areas, Middle East
1990-91
Peter Atkinson	Hertfordshire	Review of South East Asian tropical timber trade (for ITTO and CITES); maintenance of WCMC’s plant Conservation activities
Paul Fisher	De Montfort	Compiling first global list of protected mangroves
Peter Gorbutt	Coventry	Review of information on protected areas in China
Amanda Haywood	Hertfordshire	Review of international trade in sponges; assistance to Development of a directory of crocodile farming operations, and of CITES implementation in EU
Allan MacKenzie	Hertfordshire	Preparation of status reports for the 50 most endangered animals in the World
Andrew McCarthy	Hertfordshire	Compiling information on protected areas, Indonesia