Technical Specialist – LifeTree Bangladesh (Sundarbans)

Job Description

Title: Technical Specialist – LifeTree Bangladesh (Sundarbans)

Company Name: The Earth

Vacancy: 1

Age: Na

Job Location: Bagerhat, Khulna

Salary: Negotiable

Experience: --

Published: 2026-08-16

Application Deadline: 2026-09-15

Education:

Requirements: --

Skills Required:

Additional Requirements:

Responsibilities & Context:

About “The Earth Society”

The Earth Society (TES) is a youth-centric NGO working on climate action, green skills development, sustainable entrepreneurship, and advocacy in Bangladesh. Through its programmes, TES weaves together capacity building, ecosystem restoration, and livelihood development to nurture an inclusive ecosystem of resilience and regeneration.

Project Description

LifeTree Bangladesh – Sundarbans is a regenerative agroforestry and reforestation initiative implemented by The Earth Society, in partnership with Sundori Agro and Mother Trees, and funded by Ecosia. The project facilitates the plantation of climate-resilient trees through homestead agroforestry, live fencing, and social forestry across the coastal districts of Khulna and Bagerhat, along the ecological buffer zone of the Sundarbans — helping restore degraded landscapes, strengthen climate resilience, and build sustainable livelihoods for coastal communities.

Job Purpose

The Technical Specialist is the overall technical lead for all implementation under the LifeTree Bangladesh – Sundarbans project, covering both the social forestry/mangrove restoration component and the homestead agroforestry (farmer) component.

The Technical Specialist holds overall responsibility for the technical integrity of the project's training approach, including developing and adapting training curricula and materials. The Technical Specialist supervises and trains and builds the technical capacity of the three Technical Officers, and works jointly with the Technical Officers to train Field Technicians — who in turn train farmers, with ongoing support and oversight from the Technical Officers and Technical Specialist.

The Technical Specialist provides higher-level technical oversight and guidance across all field-level activities, spot-checks the quality of monitoring data and nursery/seed bank records collected primarily by Field Technicians and reviewed by Technical Officers, and engages directly on technically complex issues — including adapting and developing training materials, leading training of trainer workshops, supporting social forestry implementation and providing inputs for the technical training for nursery entrepreneurs and other small business participants — as needed.

Key Responsibilities

Technical Leadership – Agroforestry, Social Forestry & Plantation

• Provide overall technical direction and quality assurance for homestead agroforestry, social forestry, mangrove restoration and application of climate smart agriculture across the project.

• Review and provide technical recommendations on farm-level agroforestry and social forestry designs.

• Identify key technical risks affecting seedling establishment, growth, and survival, and recommend mitigation measures.

• Provide higher-level oversight and guidance on plantation progress, survival rates, and replacement needs, based on monitoring conducted by Field Technicians and supervised by Technical Officers, and support timely corrective action on significant or recurring issues.

Nursery and Seed Bank Management

• Supervise the manager of the central nursery and seedbank, providing technical training, support and spot check monitoring, ensuring quality seedling production and germination/survival standards, as well as proper seed storage.

• Spot check monitor nursery-based micro-entrepreneurs with technical guidance on propagation, seed preservation, and record-keeping, primarily through the Technical Officers.

• Periodically spot-check nursery and seed bank documentation (stock registers, species inventories, distribution records).

Training and Capacity Building

• Hold overall responsibility for the technical integrity of the project's training approach, including developing and adapting training curricula and materials for agroforestry, social forestry, and mangrove restoration and climate smart agricultural practices.

• Develop and adapting supportive supervision tools and standard operating procedures for program delivery and provision of materials, etc.

• Coordinate with Mother Trees technical staff on training content, technical guidelines, and adaptive management decisions; flag significant field-level technical issues for Mother Trees review.

• Hold overall responsibility for the integrity and consistent application of the LifeTree badge assessment system; train Technical Officers on scoring criteria and oversee annual badge assessment rounds across all enrolled farmers.

• Train and build the technical capacity of the Technical Officers as trainers and supervisors to support capacity development of field technicians and farmers.

• Work jointly with Technical Officers to train Field Technicians, ensuring consistent technical quality.

• Facilitate monthly progress review meetings with technical officers and field technicians to address program implementation challenges and jointly find solutions to achieve program deliverables.

Technical Documentation and Reporting

• Support the Project Manager in preparing annual workplans and making budget adjustments based on field experience.

• Contribute to the development of implementation manuals, and monitoring frameworks.

• Review monitoring data and program results and technical reports prepared by Technical Officers, and recommend corrective actions where needed.

• Document successful agroforestry and social forestry practices, farmer innovations, and technical lessons learned, including brief case studies to support knowledge-sharing within TES and with project partners.

• Support the preparation of technical sections of donor reports and project progress reports.

• Ensure all technical documentation meets Ecosia donor reporting standards and NGOAB requirements, and flag documentation gaps to the Project Manager promptly.

• As per project policy