Intern, Environmental Crime Alliance, Forest Legality Initiative

Program Overview

The internship will focus on development of a new multi-stakeholder initiative, the Global Alliance to End Environmental Crime (GAEC), expected to be formally launched during 2022. GAEC is envisioned as an alliance of governments, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), inter-governmental organizations, front-line civil society environmental defenders, and technical centers of excellence coming together to increase political attention and financing focused on combating illegal logging, forest clearing, fishing, mining and wildlife trafficking. WRI is leading the GAEC interim secretariat, in cooperation with the Meridian Institute and the Norwegian International Climate and Forest Initiative (NICFI). It builds on WRI’s Forest Legality Initiative, an ongoing program designed to combat the trade in illegally-logged timber and promote trade in legally-harvested forest products.

Internship Summary

The internship will support the director of the GAEC Interim Secretariat and Meridian Institute colleagues by carrying out legal and policy research and writing on specific natural resources crime issues (e.g., illegal deforestation, illegal mining, illegal fishing) as well as supporting outreach and engagement with key stakeholder groups and partner organizations.

Learning Outcomes

The intern will gain experience in the following areas:

• You will carry out research on key natural resources crime sub-sectors such as illegal fishing, mining and wildlife trafficking via literature reviews and syntheses of policy initiatives.
• You will draft short analytical writing pieces on a variety of environmental crime topics.
• You will support the WRI GAEC team in ensuring that cooperation with the Meridian Institute and other key partners is smooth and efficient.

Internship Qualifications

• Experience with law and public policy related to international environmental policy and organizations.
• Demonstrated research, writing and editing ability, especially with law-related topics.
• Comfortable interning remotely.

General Internship Requirements

• Applicants must have personal health insurance coverage.

Compensation

The pay range for this internship opportunity is between $15-18/hour, commensurate with qualifications.

Duration and Location

This is a full-time, four-month summer internship with flexible start and end dates (May to October) based on the candidate’s availability and need for the project.

This is a remote-based internship.