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Naturalist-Land Steward Internship Arc of Appalachia Preserve System
Dear Applicants, All positions are filled for the 2009 season. We are accepting applications for 2010.
Nature ... is it calling you? The Naturalist-Land Steward internship is for those who wish to walk the path of the naturalist and advance the cause of forest preservation in Eastern United States. People thrive best in this program who yearn to find balance in their lives that can lead to a sustainable future for both humanity and the rich diversity of living organisms that share our world.
The internship is an exchange program in which
interns provide valuable help and support to the operation of our non-profit
Preserve System. In return they receive housing,
monthly stipend, hands-on naturalist and stewardship experience, and experience in helping to
run a successful and bold grassroots non-profit organization
dedicated
to reuniting and restoring wilderness to the East, and serving as voice of the
temperate forest biome in the world.
Who are We ?
One is to buy and preserve land, with the goal of accumulating large reunited blocks of forest lands (and associated river corridors, prairies and wetlands) in order to restore and preserve habitat for America's Eastern Forest plant and animal species. Our restoration work is accomplished in the highest biodiversity area remaining in Ohio, a five county region on the south-central tip known as the Arc of Appalachia. In this area we have purchased over 3,200 acres of land in eleven different preserve regions since our inception in 1995. The Highlands Nature Sanctuary, where the internship program is headquartered, is our largest preserve at 2,000 acres. Its central feature is the spectacularly beautiful Rocky Fork Gorge. Two. Our second mission is to cultivate forest literacy in the citizens of the Eastern third of the United States. We offer education to the general public at our Appalachian Forest Museum. We also sponsor the Appalachian Forest School, a program that offers in-depth forest education courses at the Highlands Nature Sanctuary, and field trips across the Eastern Forest to study the forest's regional ecological expressions. Directions to the Highlands Nature Sanctuary can be found here.
The program is designed to train individuals in all aspects of the daily running of a non-profit land trust, both in the frontlines and behind-the-scenes. The Arc of Appalachia Preserve System is a lofty endeavor fueled by a very small full-time staff. Interns therefore play a pivotal role in maintaining and furthering the mission, accumulating a large number of practical, physical and administrative skills in the process. Interns are not peripheral to our organization -- they are integral to our operations, While they are on board they work as an integrated team with the full-time staff. Perhaps because of our small size, there is very little hierarchy in this organization -- everyone pitches in to do what is required and each person gives the best of what their personality and biography offers to advance the mission. An intern's work here tends toward the tangible, and interns thrive in our program who enjoy physical outdoor work in an active committed work environment. Interns work a maximum of forty hours a week, and have two days off each week. Two additional vacation days are given for each three month intern commitment.
The Visitor Services Position Two interns are selected each year to work in the field visitor services, primarily assisting the educational missions of the Appalachian Forest Museum (AFM), located at our headquarters, the Highlands Nature Sanctuary. This position is ideal for people who are interested in natural history, public relations, interpretive naturalist skills, education, and non-profit infra-structure. Forest Museum Work. Interns greet and orient visitors, answer questions, and maintain the facility at the Appalachian Forest Museum, a forest education center that is open to the public most days during the summer and on weekends in spring and fall. In-depth interpretive naturalist training is available each June to all museum workers to aid them in effective public relations and public education. Non-profit administration. AFM Interns perform administrative and office tasks that further the organization's cause. Computer software literacy and computer-communication skills are always a plus and are greatly helpful to our organization, but are not required.
Friends for Life and Animal Care. When trying to run a pristine wilderness preserve, there is always an interface with domestic life, including the unfortunate practice of abandoning unwanted domestic pets in the country. When abandoned dogs and kittens are found wandering confused and lost in the Sanctuary, and we feel we can place them in a home, interns sometimes provide foster care and assist in trying to find them a permanent human partner. In addition, interns care for a few of the Sanctuary's farm animals, including a tribe of feral barn cats that were rescued in previous operations, and a herd of Alpine goats and Jacob sheep.
The
Field Steward Position
One to two
interns are selected each year
to become field stewards of the Arc of Appalachia. These position is ideal for
people who
Trail maintenance.
The Arc of
Appalachia Preserve System offer over 20 miles of back country trails in 12
preserves. Field Stewards rotate among the many miles of trails to keep them
accessible by removing fallen trees and gently trimming back the plant growth
along the corridors. Facility upkeep and Restoration. To restore wilderness in a region as populated as the Eastern U.S. requires a master plan that favorably deals with not only reuniting forested tracts, but the houses that inevitably come with them. As part of the over sixty purchases of separate tracts of land that we have acquired to date, we have also procured over a dozen human residences that must be blended into our mission to maintain control of the road frontages. Some of the houses we tear down. Some we rent monthly to local residents with the plan of tearing them down in the far-flung future. Some buildings are developed as educational centers that offer preserve visitors overnight lodging accommodations and educational workshop space. Every year we have on-going restoration and maintenance endeavors in one or more of these fields. In addition, we must maintain the education centers and buildings that we have developed in the past, work that includes occasional cleaning of the facilities after guests, building repair, and mowing of trailheads and visitor access points.
Can the positions be combined?
Community Living in a Natural Setting.
n Forest Museum, and
within close proximity to a large number of hiking trails. In 2008, and we hope
in future summers, we have been able to provide a weekly CSA (Community Supported
Agriculture) share of food to interns of fresh, organic produce raised by local
Amish farmers to supplement intern's food expenses. Interns are either assigned
to a private bedroom, or share a bedroom with one intern of the same gender.
Interns may choose bike the 8 miles of rural roads to JR's, a bountiful
Mennonite-run grocery & pantry. JR's has enough of a selection of bulk foods,
deli items, and fresh produce that conceivably an intern could spend their entire
season at the Sanctuary without ever having to take a car into town. However, if
the town
allures, the small town of Bainbridge (with a pharmacy and an IGA) is five miles
away and can also be easily accessed by bike.
Community Dinners and
Sustainable Cooking Skills.
A
Stipend. Curriculum.
The Internship program is available from March through the first week of December. Average terms are 3-6 months. Minimum length of participation is a ten week term. Maximum length is 9 months. Priority is given to early applicants, applications from returning interns, and applicants who can work a spring or fall term in addition to the summer season. NOTE: Because internships are such an important part of our operations, we ask from all interns who apply and accept a position with our organization that they sign a contract of commitment. Once the contracts are received for all available positions, we will turn away all future applicants.
Expectations for Internships This internship program is best suited for people who love group work, but have sufficient individuality and initiative to stay connected to their unique inner drive and personal goals. In all cases, what an intern gets "out" of the program is proportional to the passion and self-discipline poured into the program. This program is for people who like to work hard, who have a deep and abiding love for nature, have a natural curiosity in life, have a moderate or high level of physical energy, and have a natural sensitivity and respect toward people. The intern is expected to perform at a level expected in a standard employment situation for the duration of the internship, at 40 hrs. per week. The opportunity for extra volunteer time is available but is never required. Interns typically work five days in a row, and then have two days off. Each intern will have sufficient opportunity beyond the work week to enjoy unstructured time that can be spent in education, recreation, personal chores and rest. Interns have access to the Sanctuary’s extensive environmental library, including many natural history reference books. Expenses borne by the intern include food and personal care items, transportation, long-distance phone calls, and recreation. Interns are expected to take a team-approach to the Museum and their co-housing residence -- being willing to share all tasks evenly -- whether administrative or physical. As primarily an intern and volunteer run business, interns should prepare themselves to take the 
challenge of maintaining the business seriously and
professionally.
Applications for the 2010 season
is now being accepted! Apply Now
to ensure a spot in the program.
Tim Pohlar: Internship Coordinator, Cave Canyon Manger Tim found his way to the Sanctuary by a string of fortunate “coincidences” and became an intern in the spring of 2004, an experience that changed the course of his life. He now has a solid foundation of the ways of nature, including recognizing most plants and animals by name, and a story to go along with them. Time has now come for Tim to help others walk the path of the Naturalist and anchor a life of greater environmental sustainability. Tim graduated from OSU in 2006 with a degree in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology. He loves caring for animals, both wild and domestic, and is devoted to his "girls" (three dogs named Kayla, Usipho and Raven) and his two cats (Azure and Jasper). Tim is an outdoors-guy. He loves being busy and purposeful, learning new skills and accomplishing tangible challenges that advance the land preservation mission, protecting the natural world that he loves. His hobbies include gardening, and hearthside cooking - in which he excels and the rest of us benefit.
Both Larry and Nancy
had their beginning careers with the Ohio State Parks, working as naturalists,
chief naturalists of the interpretive program, and in the case of Larry,
Assistant Chief of the Division. After ten years, they left the park Crystal Marvin A life-long Girl Scout from rural New England, Crystal has always been close to nature. Just like Tim Pohlar a few years earlier, she found her way to the Sanctuary firstly through the intern program. In Crystal's words, she came secondly out of a desire to help mend her heart over what she sees as the mindless destruction of her beloved Earth. Crystal graduated from OSU in 2005 with degrees in Linguistics and Japanese, and has studied 6 foreign languages. She is very interested in sustainable living, and keeps a vermiculture composting bin in her kitchen. She has a wide variety of interesting but nominally unrelated skills, including writing HTML and playing the penny whistle! Underestimate Crystal's modest demeanor at your own peril! We Sanctuary folks think she is one of the most brilliant people we have ever met. She single-handedly manages our office systems, our infrastructure, and nearly all of our visitor services. The rest of us have to work overtime twenty hours a week just to keep up with her brisk efficiency. She's a computer whiz and is savvy with even tricky software programs. If that list isn't enough skills for one person, she's kind hearted, too! She currently lives with her two cats, and opens her house regularly to visiting guests and volunteers.
Connecting is the
first step to saving the forest.
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In the fall
season, field stewards work in Arc preserves that have been set aside for native
prairie habitat, special eco-systems that need a degree of natural disturbance to stay vital.
Most of this work involves removing juniper trees so that the prairie grasses
and forbes don't get shaded out, and so the grasslands can get occasionally
mowed. Also in the fall, field stewards are involved in protecting the colonies
of native ginseng and goldenseal that grow naturally in the preserve system. 
system for “greener pastures,” co-founding Benevolence Bakery in 1985 and
Benevolence Café in Columbus in 1995 – a back-to-earth eatery with fresh
whole grain breads and vegetarian soups served at large community tables. Larry
and Nancy founded an intern program at Benevolence Café in 2001, which
became the predecessor of the current intern program at the Sanctuary. 
s deeply concerned at the
diminishing numbers of trained naturalists in a world in which nature is
universally becoming a mental abstraction, a mere “backdrop.” Studying
environmental worldly events for several hours each evening, he brings a wide
planetary view to every person that he mentors, encouraging others to strive for
personal empowerment and a commitment to the earth’s healing. He is passionate
about passing the torch to a small but significant number of people belonging to
the “next generation".