Head of Land Use and Nature

Location: London (remote working within the UK is possible)
Hours: Full-Time or Part-Time (5 days or 4 days per week pro rata)
Remuneration: £80,000 -£100,000 depending on experience

Role overview 

This is a new role within FILE, providing dedicated thought leadership internally and externally with respect to our land use and nature strategies. You will support our partners to accelerate a transition to sustainable food production, secure and enforce sustainable frameworks for extraction of transition minerals, and contribute to safeguarding key global ecosystems, including through enhancing and protecting the rights of indigenous peoples and local communities.

You will work closely with the Director of Program Strategy, Regional Directors, and other portfolio leads to ensure land use and nature strategies are developed and integrated throughout our funding portfolios. Externally, you will build and maintain relationships with some of the world’s leading climate and biodiversity lawyers and campaigners, as well as with aligned philanthropies.

Our land use and nature work mainly supports partners working on protecting habitats in biodiversity rich areas of Africa, South America and South East Asia, including by challenging harmful practices of corporations based in the Global North. Its scope may shift over time, including as the successful candidate refines our strategy going forwards.

We seek to protect the rights of, and support partnerships with, indigenous people and local communities. Key strategic outcomes pursued include confronting supply chains of major corporates that drive greenhouse gas emissions, biodiversity loss, and violate the rights of local communities, and securing regulatory changes to drive finance towards cleaner, more equitable alternatives.

Key Responsibilities

Each of these is conducted in close collaboration with relevant colleagues across FILE’s strategy teams, as well as FILE’s Research, Impact, and Learning, Grant Management, and Philanthropic Partnerships teams: 

• Lead the development of FILE’s land use and nature strategies, including a focus on legal and narrative and movement-building approaches, as well as on enhancing and protecting the rights of indigenous peoples and local communities 
• These strategies will set out a well-considered approach to sectors and themes including exploitation of transition minerals, deforestation and biodiversity loss driven by industrial agriculture, addressing rights violations in global corporate supply chains, etc 
• Work in close collaboration with strategy, grant making and fundraising leads within FILE to increase access to funding sources and the resilience of partners working in the field
• Developing, maintaining and convening external partnerships and networks with partners and practitioners working on and use and nature strategies 
• Provide leadership to the wider philanthropic and donor community on the need for legal interventions in pursuit of FILE’s land use and nature strategy, and support fundraising for FILE as well as directly for our partners 

Key Outcomes 

• FILE has a well-considered land use and nature strategy, including a focus both on legal and related narrative and movement strategies, which is integrated throughout our funding portfolios
• Increased funding is made available to partner organisations working on land use and nature, via FILE or directly from other philanthropies
• FILE colleagues and external partners have a trusted thought partner and collaborator on developing and implementing land use and nature legal strategies 
• Overseeing / establishing high quality convening(s), with support of FILE’s Convening Manager, and networks of civil society and relevant legal practitioners and peers working in this area, to catalyse innovation and strengthen connectivity 
• An engaged group of funders, ready to deepen their support for our partners’ work on land use and nature strategies 

About you 

We know that long lists of criteria can be discouraging and that some candidates will not apply for a role unless they feel they are 100% qualified. If you feel you meet at least some of the relevant criteria, we still encourage you to apply. 

We also recognise that skills and experience can be gained in unexpected places, so we welcome applications from candidates who feel they have relevant skills for the role, gained from a wide range of professional, lived and learned experiences.

Essential criteria 

• A strong commitment to protecting the environment, reforming corporate and financial governance, strengthening government ambition, and prioritising the rights of indigenous peoples, marginalised groups, and other communities most affected by climate change and environmental harms 
• Experience of and expertise in developing and / or delivering legal strategies to advance systemic change on land use and nature 
• Demonstrated experience in linking legal strategies to effective communications, campaign, and/or movement strategies to advance systemic change 
• An ability to strategically manage projects, including prioritisation and forwards planning
• An ability to work equitably and effectively with multiple perspectives and build trust with diverse partners, and understanding of funder positionality and responsibility. 
• A willingness to travel from time to time (at least four times a year, more if working remotely) to meet FILE staff and partners 
• An ability to work flexibly as part of a team spread across many time zones, which will involve some meetings outside of standard working hours 
• A professional standard of written and spoken English

Desired criteria 

• A current or past qualification / bar admission as a lawyer 
• Experience of working as a lawyer on strategic litigation against governments, corporations, or financial institutions 
• Demonstrated experience of building and / or maintaining external networks, bringing expert practitioners and / or civil society together 
• Experience working with communities adversely affected by climate change, environmental harms, and/or related human rights violations, particularly in the Global South 
• Existing relationships with NGOs, lawyers, and / or philanthropic partners working on relevant land use and nature strategies 
• An ability to communicate with partners in other relevant languages, including Portuguese, French, Spanish, and Bahasa Indonesia, would be a bonus but not essential 

About FILE

The Foundation for International Law for the Environment (FILE) is a not-for-profit philanthropic organisation working to accelerate legal action on climate change. 

Through grant-making and in-house legal expertise, we empower our partners to deliver strategic, innovative legal interventions and we support lawyers in their own countries to bring their own cases. 

Legal action can unlock the systemic changes in finance, policy and social systems needed to protect all of us from climate change. The power of the law is both direct (changing policy and practice) and indirect (signalling the wider shifts taking place across these systems).

FILE is a ‘regrantor’ - this means we do not bring legal action in our own name. We receive grants from our philanthropic donors (a small group of like-minded climate foundations) and make onwards grants to partners who align with FILE’s charitable aims and purposes. We do not seek to make any profit from our activities either in a relevant financial year or in the longer term.