Woodland Development Manager

Woodland Development Manager Full time, permanent contract 35 hours per week (will consider part-time at 4 days per weeks, 28 hours) Based at our offices in Clapham, near Settle, with a mix of office and home working.

We have an exciting opportunity for an experienced Project Manager to lead on delivering our woodland strategy, focused on offering guidance, advice and support to landowners and communities.

You’ll play a critical role in creating and enhancing woodlands across the Yorkshire Dales, Nidderdale and the Forest of Bowland, as well as helping people to create, enhance and celebrate our woodlands through training, volunteering and events.

About the role

Our ambitious woodland strategy has enabled us to grow the depth and breadth of our woodland work, increasing our ability to help tackle climate change, biodiversity loss and connect more people with nature. We have strong partnerships in place to ensure a joined up approach to woodland creation, helping to share best practice and deliver greater impact.

Our woodland team help landowner and communities to navigate their choices and understand the multiple benefits trees provide. A focus on the creation and better management of small woodland areas has enabled more people to take climate action and help connect up the patchwork mosaic of habitats that form the landscape character within the Dales.

Our support includes a flexible grant programme for the creation of woods, hedgerow, landscape trees, scrub and wood pasture, as well as woodland management grants to boost biodiversity and resilience.

We inspire and enable local communities to deliver alongside us through a range of woodland activities, including the development of a network of community tree nurseries. Our newly created woodlands are revisited to ensure they are being maintained and to monitor changes in biodiversity. We work collaboratively to remove and recycle tree guards. We are passionate about addressing the skills shortage that the whole woodland sector faces, through the recruitment of Woodland Trainees and upskilling our communities.

About you

We’re looking for someone with a background in woodland creation and management who can work with a range of landowners. Your role will involve the effective delivery of the Woodland Strategy with a focus on building and maintaining strategic partnerships and managing the Woodlands Team.

As a Manager at YDMT you will help to support the development of your team and work across our interlinking projects to deliver our aims and objectives.

Underpinning all of this is your ability to work within our culture – which means sharing our values of being creative, caring, honest and enabling.

We believe the role will be a highly rewarding one, and a real opportunity for someone to develop their skills in a fantastic organisation, whilst benefiting this wonderful area and its communities.

About Yorkshire Dales Millennium Trust

We are a small charity doing big things to help to protect and enhance the People, Landscape and Wildlife of the Dales.

For 29 years we have delivered diverse and inspirational projects, helping to plant 1.6 million trees and securing the future of more than 850 hectares of wildflower hay meadows, creating habitats for our wildlife and combatting climate change. We are passionate about inspiring disadvantaged groups and future generations to care for this special area. Our three-year strategy is centred around building partnerships that increase the scale and pace of nature recovery.