Ever think about teaching? Here's an intro on what it takes to land an entry level teaching job.

Entry level jobs in Conservation

Looking for more jobs in Conservation? Check out the most recent job postings in Conservation.

Below you'll find all of the companies that we've covered that may offer entry level jobs in Conservation. You can also look at internships in Conservation.

Environmental Law Institute Logo

It’s amazing how a good snowfall can quiet a city down. It may not be as serene as a natural landscape, but it reminds you that nature still exists in a setting that has been almost completely altered by man. It’s easy to forget about the environment when you live in a city, but I’m sure that’s not a problem for the people at the Environmental Law Institute. It’s a Washington, DC based non-profit organization that “makes law work for people, places, and the planet.” That’s an important role because environmental health is a public good that can be ruined by the actions of a few. Environmental changes can have all kinds of externalities, so it’s important that our legal system is set up in a way that promotes “a healthy environment, prosperous economies, and vibrant communities.”

Read the full article →

The Nature Conservancy

by on January 8, 2012

The Nature Conservancy Logo

Last night I started watching Planet Earth and ended up staying awake later than I intended. This morning the same channel was on, and I ended up watching documentaries on Yellowstone. There aren’t many things that I find more fascinating than nature, so it’s easy for me to get caught up in these kinds of shows. It’s also why I think the work of The Nature Conservancy is so important. They’re an international non-profit organization based in Arlington, VA that is “the leading conservation organization working around the world to protect ecologically important lands and waters for nature and people.” The Nature Conservancy was founded in 1951, and since then they have grown their membership to more than 1 million people. The organization’s huge size gives it a ton of power and has enabled it to do some really amazing work.

Read the full article →

WildAid

by on December 11, 2011

The University of Chicago has five job openings that are perfect for recent grads. Check them out here.

WildAid Logo

I’ve always been fascinated by wildlife. Every time I see a species that I’ve never seen before in the wild, I get excited. So I find it upsetting that so many amazing animal species are in danger of extinction. I realize that some extinction is natural, some is caused indirectly by man, and some is caused directly by man. It’s that last group that is most worrying. There is currently a $5-10 billion worldwide trade in illegal wildlife, yet many wildlife conservation efforts ignore this fact–they invest millions in try to protect the species, but they ignore the demand side. WildAid is a San Francisco, CA based non-profit organization that aims to “end the illegal wildlife trade in our lifetimes by reducing demand through public awareness campaigns and providing comprehensive marine protection.”

Read the full article →

National Fish and Wildlife Foundation Logo

For me there’s nothing better than spending time outdoors fishing and being surrounded by wildlife. I think I’m particularly lucky, because I live in a time where I’ve actually seen many of my favorite fishing spots get better over the years. A lot of the conservation work done by organizations like Trout Unlimited and the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation is paying off. That’s not to say that we’ve eliminated the threats to nature, but it feels like we hit an inflection point some time during my lifetime. The National Fish and Wildlife Foundation is a non-profit organization that was created by Congress in 1984 to direct “public conservation dollars to the most pressing environmental needs and matches those investments with private funds.” They’re based in Washington, DC, and they’ve “awarded over 11,000 grants to more than 3,800 organizations in the United States, investing a total of $1.8 billion for conservation” over the past 3 decades.

Get Wild

The National Fish and Wildlife Foundation is all about bringing public and private conservation projects together. They don’t seem to actually do any work on the ground, but they have the money to significantly influence where conservation funding goes. You can get a sense for how the NFWF works by reading up on their Grant Programs, and you can browse their Grants Library to learn more about the specific projects (though this feature is currently giving me a server error). There isn’t all that much else on the NFWF website, though they also have a Impact-Directed Environmental Accounts Program that “receives, manages, and disburses funds that originate from court orders, settlements of legal cases, regulatory permits, licenses, and restoration and mitigation plans.” If you like what NFWF is doing for conservation, then you can get involved by checking out their Careers page. The Digital Media and Web Services Manager could be a fit for a recent grad, and there’s also a Grants Administrator position posted on Idealist that seems like a good fit for a new grad.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

What’s your favorite place to experience wildlife?

Sacramento Tree Foundation Logo

I used to wake up every day, look out the window, and see the Chicago skyline. In my new place, I wake up and see a whole bunch of trees. Though I know I’ll miss being able to watch the city from a few hundred feet up, it’s a nice change. Who doesn’t love trees? Well, the people at the Sacramento Tree Foundation probably love trees even more than the average person. The Sacramento Tree Foundation is a non-profit organization based in Sacramento, CA that is “working to grow healthy, livable communities in the Sacramento region by empowering people to plant, protect, and learn about trees.” They have a goal of planting 5 million trees in the area by 2025. Though they have a long way to go, they’ve already gotten off to a great start.

Read the full article →

Sponsored Jobs: Love restaurants and looking for an entry level job? SinglePlatform has a ton of positions that are perfect for you. They’re our sponsor this week, and you can check out all of their positions here.

Washington Wilderness Coalition Logo

Yesterday I was too busy talking about candy to mention that it was Earth Day. Luckily, a good friend reminded me that I should probably cover an environmentally minded non-profit today. I did a quick search, and came across the Washington Wilderness Coalition. They’re based in Seattle, WA, and they aim to “to preserve and restore wild areas in Washington State through citizen empowerment, support for grassroots community groups, advocacy and public education.” That’s something that I can get behind since I’ve enjoyed Washington State’s wilderness. In 2007 I spent a day fly fishing the Klickitat River. I didn’t catch anything but one tiny rainbow trout/steelhead, but I got to enjoy the scenery and spot some cool wildlife. It’s just the kind of place that Washington Wilderness Coalition aims to protect, and it’s definitely worth protecting.

Read the full article →

Cabela’s

by on March 29, 2011

Cabela's Logo

Being a fly fisherman, I sometimes get frustrated with living in Chicago. Not only are there few opportunities to go fishing without a decent drive, but the winters are way too long (it’s supposed to be spring now, and it’s not). To get through the winter I’ll often visit fishing stores, look at websites, and read through catalogs. It’s not much, but it’s all I have. And Cabela’s provides all three options. The company is based in Sidney, NE, and they’re the “largest mail-order, retail and Internet outdoor outfitter in the world.” It all started in 1961 with a tiny classified ad that Dick Cabela placed in a newspaper because he wanted to sell some fishing flies that he purchased while visiting Chicago for a furniture show (since Nebraska is even less of a fly fishing destination than Chicago is). Despite a lackluster response to the original ad, Dick Cabela kept trying. The company grew organically, and now Cabela’s is dominating three major retail channels. The truly amazing part of the story is that Cabela’s has been able to maintain their commitment to customer service throughout all of the growth. I’m not a big customer (I try to support local shops), but I have quite a few friends who are extremely loyal Cabela’s customers because of the quality of products and service.

Read the full article →

Rock the Earth

by on March 27, 2011

Rock the Earth Logo

Music has always been connected with social change. There’s just something about it that gets people motivated to take action. But often the music can also be a distraction. It takes a delicate balance to combine the power of music with a specific cause to elicit a positive response. That’s what Rock the Earth is all about. They’re a Denver, CO based non-profit organization that is “dedicated to protecting and defending America’s natural resources through partnerships with the music industry and the world-wide environmental community.” They were founded in 2002, and since then they’ve been “defending the planet one beat at a time.”

Read the full article →

Saint Louis Zoo

by on March 19, 2011

Saint Louis Zoo Logo

I’m in St. Louis for the weekend, mostly to watch my girlfriend’s little sister’s volleyball tournament, but I’m looking for other cool things to do since it’s my first time here. Yesterday I got to visit the Saint Louis Zoo, which is fantastic. (And I promise I didn’t act like this kid.) I got to see monkeys, giraffes, zebras, lions, penguins, gorillas, elephants, somali wild asses, and a whole range of other animals that I’d never even heard of before. I even got to see the mountain nyala that makes an appearance in the zoo’s logo. I was really impressed with the Saint Louis Zoo—it has a wonderful layout and an amazing collection of animals. The best part, though, was that we got to see feeding time for the grizzly bears. It may sound barbaric, but it was nothing of the sort. We watched as two of the laziest bears that I’ve ever seen would catch oranges in their mouths and then suck out the meat while leaving behind the rind. What made the experience even better was that it was free. Saint Louis Zoo is a “free zoo,” so all you have to pay for is parking.

Read the full article →

Alliance to Save Energy

by on February 12, 2011

Alliance to Save Energy Logo

When we talk about energy efficiency, we often think about the environment. If we use less energy, we do less harm to the environment—but that’s only half the story. Energy efficiency is also essential to keeping our world’s economy growing. Nearly all economic activity requires some sort of energy input, and energy is quite obviously a limited resource. If we can find ways to use the energy that we have more efficiently, we can stimulate more economic growth. The Alliance to Save Energy is a non-profit organization that was started in response to the oil embargo of the 1970s. They saw how reliant our economy was on foreign oil, and they wanted to take action to decrease that reliance through conservation. The Washington, DC based organization obviously still has a long way to go, but they have a great track record of helping businesses and the environment at the same time.

Read the full article →

Rodale Institute

by on December 11, 2010

Rodale Institute Logo

Last week I got an e-mail from a One Day, One Job reader who is just wrapping up a seasonal position and looking for her next gig. In doing so, she realized that other readers might be interested in her current position, so she wrote me to tell me about it. When I saw the name Rodale Institute in her e-mail, I swore to myself that I had already featured the organization, but it was actually a publishing company named Rodale that was started by the same person as the Institute and used to be financially linked to it as well. The Rodale Institute is a Kutztown, PA based non-profit organization that is “dedicated to pioneering organic farming through research and outreach.” They’ve been at it since 1947, and they’re going to keep “researching the best practices of organic agriculture and sharing [their] findings with farmers and scientists throughout the world” because they believe that eating organic is the healthiest option for people and for the Earth.

Read the full article →

The Mountain Institute

by on November 20, 2010

The Mountain Institute Logo

I love the mountains. They are some of the most untamed and untouched pieces of land left on the face of the Earth, and I’ve come to appreciate them more and more as I’ve lived in Chicago where you can see flat, developed land to the horizon. People who live in mountain communities are extremely reliant on the ecosystems that exist above them, yet these ecosystems are some of the most sensitive known to man. The Mountain Institute is a non-profit organization that works to “develop policies, investments, and participatory approaches to enable mountain people, and the billions affected downstream, to understand, harness, and manage the interrelated and complex issues confronting the world’s mountains in the 21st century.” Their Executive Office is located in Washington, DC, while their Corporate Business Office is in Morgantown, WV. Additionally, they have program offices across Asia, North America, and South America.

Read the full article →

Environment America

by on November 13, 2010

Want to connect with me and other One Day, One Job readers? Join our LinkedIn Group.

Environment America Logo

Now, I’m not one to worry much about Global Warming, especially when I’m enjoying a snap of 60-plus degree weather in Chicago in mid-November, but that doesn’t mean I’m not concerned about the environment. There’s no doubt that our way of life has numerous negative impacts on the natural world around us, and we’re not doing enough to minimize those impacts. Environment America is a nationwide, non-profit “federation of state-based, citizen-funded environmental advocacy organizations” that is headquartered in Washington, DC. Their strategy is focused on combining “independent research, practical ideas and tough-minded advocacy to overcome the opposition of powerful special interests and win real results for the environment.” (Yes, they’re another special interest that is fighting special interests.) They’ve been around for 30 years, and I’m sure that they’re going to keep on going as long as mankind is harming the environment.

Read the full article →

Environmental Investigation Agency Logo

We may only hear about the big ones like the Gulf Oil Spill, but environmental crimes happen every day. There’s too much money to be made in exploiting the environment, whether it’s dumping toxic waste or trading in products from illegally harvested endangered species. Unfortunately, world governments aren’t nearly as effective at policing environmental criminals as they should be. That’s why Environmental Investigation Agency exists. They’re a Washington, DC based non-profit organization that “committed to promoting environmental conservation by investigating and exposing environmental crimes around the world, and then working to stop these crimes.” They’ve operating internationally since 1984, and they started in DC in 1989.

Read the full article →

Global Green USA

by on October 9, 2010

Global Green USA

As far as I can tell, most of the non-profits that we’ve featured here have originated in the United States—even the ones that do most of their work internationally. Global Green USA is an exception. They are “the American Arm of Green Cross International (GCI), which was created by President Mikhail S. Gorbachev to foster a global value shift toward a sustainable and secure future by reconnecting humanity with the environment.” Global Green USA is headquartered in Santa Monica, CA, and they also have offices in New Orleans, LA; Washington, DC; and New York, NY. Though they do work on some international issues with GCI, their domestic focus is on “fighting global climate change through [their] green affordable housing initiatives, National Green Schools Initiative, national and reginonal green building policies, advocacy and education.”

Read the full article →

American Farmland Trust

by on October 3, 2010

American Farmland Trust Logo

Environmentalism and farming have an interesting relationship. Without a healthy environment, productive farming is nearly impossible; however, farming done wrong can be even worse for ecosystems than a smoke-spewing, toxic waste dumping factory. American Farmland Trust is a non-profit organization headquartered in Washington, DC that works with communities and individuals to “to protect the best land, plan for growth with agriculture in mind and keep the land healthy.” As America forgets how reliant it is on farmland for our food, more and more farms are being developed and losing their food producing capacity. American Farmland Trust was founded in 1980, and since then they’ve saved “millions of acres of farmland from development and led the way for establishing sound environmental practices on millions more.”

Read the full article →

Green Education Foundation

by on September 4, 2010

Green Education Foundation Logo

When I was in Kindergarten, I was given a tree seedling in a half milk carton. I was supposed to bring it home and plant it. I’m sure there was some other lesson that came with the seedling, but all I can remember is having my own tree and thinking it was cool. I went home and planted the tree in a marginal spot where it took way too long to grow. The tree even made the move when my parents bought a new house, but it only lasted a few months in its new spot. This tree was obviously part of my “green education,” and that was back in the early 90s. Obviously, the need for environmental education continues to grow, and the Green Education Foundation in Walpole, MA is aiming to fill the growing need. They are a “non-profit organization that provides environmental education resources for Pre K-12 classrooms and youth groups nationwide.” I don’t know if seedlings in milk cartons is still in, but I bet the Green Education Foundation has much more innovative ways of teaching now.

Read the full article →

EarthShare

by on June 26, 2010

EarthShare Logo

I remember selling wrapping paper at my Dad’s office to support my elementary school. I’m sure his employees felt pressured to buy from me so I could win some stupid prize. What a terrible way to raise funds for a school or non-profit—it’s such an intrusion. But what if there was a great way to give money to great causes while at work that wasn’t quite so pushy? There is, and it’s called EarthShare. They’re a Bethesda, MD based non-profit that helps other environmental conservation focused non-profits raise money. They do this by giving employees (at any company that participates) the choice to have funds automatically deducted from their paychecks and donated to either specific member charities or a general EarthShare fund that is distributed amongst all of EarthShare’s member charities.

Read the full article →

ARKive

by on June 20, 2010

ARKive Logo

I’m up in Michigan for my annual Father’s Day fly fishing trip. The town that I stay in is called Grayling, which is named after a fish. Unfortunately, it’s a fish that I’ll never catch here, because it’s extinct—at least the Michigan population is. Back in the 1800s the entire state of Michigan was logged, and apparently the value of the wood harvested from Michigan during the Gold Rush was $1 billion greater than the gold found in California during the same time. That had some serious environmental consequences, and one of those was the extinction of the Michigan Grayling. The introduction of trout to many of Michigan’s rivers didn’t help either, as they outcompeted the grayling for food. Luckily, we still have populations of grayling in Montana, Alaska, and much of Canada. They’re not completely lost, but there are plenty of species that we’ll never get to see. ARKive is changing it. Not only are they fighting to prevent many species from going extinct, but they’re also documenting the world’s most endangered species so even if they are extirpated, they’ll never be completely lost. ARKive is an initiative of Wildscreen, a UK based organization with an American arm located in Washington, DC.

Read the full article →

Student Conservation Association Logo

In yesterday’s post on Civic Works, I told you all about my first summer job doing manual labor. If I had known that I’d be writing about the Student Conservation Association today, I probably would have saved the story, as they’re an organization that puts students to work protecting and restoring “national parks, marine sanctuaries, cultural landmarks and community green spaces in all 50 states.” They’re based in Charlestown, NH with regional offices in Oakland, CA; Pittsburgh, PA; Seattle, WA; and Washington, DC. The SCA offers an endless variety of conservation opportunities for students, and they’ve been doing it since 1955 when a Vassar College student named Elizabeth Cushman wrote about the idea in her senior thesis. Now the SCA takes on 4,000 interns and volunteers every year, and they combine for “more than two million hours of conservation service per year.”

Read the full article →

The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Logo

You know somebody is rich when they have a foundation named after them. You know somebody is really rich when their kids have their own foundations. That was the case with Andrew W. Mellon. In 1940 his daughter Ailsa Mellon Bruce established The Avalon Foundation, and in 1941 his son Paul Mellon established The Old Dominion Foundation. In 1969, with the combined value of the foundations at $220 million, the children decided to merge their foundations in honor of their father. That seems to have been a good decision considering that The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, which is based in New York City, has assets totaling $6.5 billion in 2007. In case you don’t know who Andrew Mellon was, you can read his story here. The short of it was that he was held in the same esteem as men like Rockefeller, Ford, Carnegie, Morgan, and Frick, but he differed in that “he excelled in four fields of endeavor: as a businessman and banker; as a politician and statesman; as an art collector; and as a philanthropist.”

Read the full article →

I don’t know about where you are, but here in Chicago it’s pretty clear that spring is on its way. We’re going to break 50 degrees this week, and the geese are already back and looking for places to nest. I may be in a huge city, but I’m not completely out of touch with nature. However, I’ve always wanted to spend more time closer to nature. The Institute for Environmental Awareness is a Massachusetts based organization that offers that kind of experience. Their mission is “to promote and support programs and services that encourage living and learning in harmony with the Earth and all Life,” and they do this through a number of earth-based, outdoor education programs. You may have noticed that I couldn’t find a suitable logo for them. That’s because their website looks like it’s from the mid 90s, and I wasn’t going to subject you to yellow text with a black drop shadow over a photo of a tree. An ugly website may be a bad indicator for a marketing firm or a web startup, but not for a nature based organization.

Read the full article →

Academy of Natural Sciences

by on February 20, 2010

Academy of Natural Sciences Logo

For most of us museums are just places to go to visit for a day and to learn something new. We rarely think about what is going on behind the scenes, but we should. At many major museums there is also a significant research function. A perfect examples is the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia, PA, which sounds like a research institution, but it also runs a museum. In fact, The Academy is the “oldest natural science research institution and museum in the New World” according to Wikipedia. The Academy has been at the forefront of biological and earth sciences since its inception, and it continues to promote public education in those areas. Just to give you an idea of the scale on which they operate, their collections include more than 17 million specimens. That’s crazy!

Read the full article →

California Conservation Corps Logo

After my Freshman year of college, I decided that I wanted a summer job that would allow me to work outside. I ended up doing maintenance at a fish and game club. It was like a great experience—even if I only worked 20 hours per week. If you want to work outside and are looking for something a little more intense than 20 hours per week, then you need to check out the California Conservation Corps. It’s a government run program that “matches up California’s young people and its natural resources.” Every year the CCC hires 3,300 corpsmembers and pays them minimum wage to take on projects like working on backcountry trails, aiding salmon restoration, promoting watershed stewardship, and providing emergency response services. The CCC has been around since 1976, and since then they’ve employed more than 100,000 young men and women with 98% saying that they “would recommend the CCC to a family member or friend.”

Read the full article →

Long Island Pine Barrens Society Logo

When I hear the words “pine barrens,” I either think of the area in New Jersey called the Pine Barrens or the band, which was also called The Pine Barrens, that played at my 7th grade class’ end of the year party. Until today, though, I didn’t really know what pine barrens were beyond a big forest of pine trees. There’s a lot more to them than that, and, luckily, Wikipedia is able to help out. Its definition of pine barrens is “plant communities that occur on dry, acidic, infertile soils dominated by grasses, forbs, low shrubs, and small to medium sized pines; most extensive barrens occur in large areas of sandy glacial deposits, including outwash plains, lakebeds, and outwash terraces along rivers.” These areas aren’t typically found in populated areas, which makes it surprising that Long Island has its own Pine Barrens (see the Wikipedia article for all of the specifics). That’s why the Long Island Pine Barrens Society exists—to protect an ecosystem that is constantly under pressure from development. They’re based in Riverhead, NY, and their focus as a non-profit is on education and advocacy.

Read the full article →

Second Nature

by on November 21, 2009

Second Nature Logo

When I was in college, campus sustainability was just starting to become a common buzzword. I guess it makes sense that higher education institutions would be at the forefront of such a movement—you know, since they deal with students protesting by camping in tree tops all the time. Second Nature is a Boston based non-profit organization that is continuing this movement (no not the camping out in tree tops). They initiate and support “high-leverage national initiatives and programs aimed at re-orienting the higher education sector toward more sustainable outcomes.” It’s a smart idea, because they’re targeting the places where their ideas are most likely to catch on. If they can succeed by pushing sustainability forward on college campuses, then there’s a good chance that the sustainability movement can go a lot farther.

Read the full article →

Wildlife Conservation Society Logo

I’m a nut about wildlife. I don’t watch Animal Planet all day or anything, but I get ridiculously excited when I see a new species in the wild. My hope is to one day run into a mountain lion in the wild, at least as long as I’m not being hunted. As fanatical as I am about wildlife, I bet I don’t even come close to the people at the Wildlife Conservation Society, a New York City based non-profit. They were founded in 1895 with a “clear mission to save wildlife and wild places across the globe.” Their first major success was aiding the recovery of American Bison, and now they’re working to “protect many of the world’s iconic creatures here and abroad, including gorillas in the Congo, tigers in India, polar bears in the Arctic, and ocean giants in our world’s amazing seascapes.” Beyond doing that, they also run 5 parks in New York City—the Bronx Zoo, New York Aquarium, Central Park Zoo, Prospect Park Zoo and Queens Zoo.

Read the full article →

American Rivers

by on October 25, 2009

American Rivers Logo

I love rivers (mostly because they’re where I usually go fly fishing). They’re the lifeblood of our society, and even though we’ve figured out ways to move water on our own, they’re still a huge part of our infrastructure. There’s no question as to why most major cities sit on the banks of a large river. The problem with that is that it means that many of our greatest rivers have been subjected to significant abuse. Dams, pollution, irrigation, and overconsumption have left many of our rivers in pretty sad states. American Rivers is a Washington, DC based non-profit that hopes to fix this. They describe themselves as “the leading conservation organization standing up for healthy rivers so communities can thrive.”

Read the full article →

Seed Savers Exchange

by on October 4, 2009

Seed Savers Exchange Logo

You’ve probably heard the term “heirloom,” in reference to fruits or vegetables. For the longest time I had no idea what it meant, but eventually I asked someone and the gist of the definition is “any garden plant that has a history of being passed down within a family, just like pieces of heirloom jewelry or furniture.” More often than not the plants are passed down in the form of seeds. Heirloom breeds of plants are important not only for sentimental reasons, but also because they provide genetic diversity. By maintaining old breeds of plants with their unique resistance to disease and pests, we are able to ensure the security of our food supply. Seed Savers Exchange is a Decorah, IA based non-profit that “saves and shares the heirloom seeds of our garden heritage, forming a living legacy that can be passed down through generations.”

Read the full article →

Oceana

by on September 19, 2009

Oceana Logo

I love our oceans—everything about them. I love swimming in them, eating the food that they provide, fishing in them, watching sunsets over them, and all of the other wonderful things that they offer. However, our oceans are both blessed and cursed by the same thing—they seem infinite. That’s what makes them so great, but it’s also what has led us to abusing them nearly to the point of no return. A little pollution will disappear in the vastness of an ocean. Overfishing doesn’t matter because there are always more fish. Scraping up the bottom isn’t a big deal because we can’t see the bottom. I wish that oceans were that resilient, but they’re not. Oceana is a Washington, DC based non-profit organization that “seeks to make our oceans as rich, healthy and abundant as they were in our grandparents’ youth.” They recognize the value of their oceans, and they’re doing something to protect them.

Read the full article →

Pages: 1 2 Older Jobs