Urban Forest Management Contractor

(Paid Opportunities) Return to Paid Opportunities

Start Date: September 30, 2024  Compensation: $40/hour

Common Ground is seeking proposals from independent contractors who can manage implementation of key aspects of a forest management plan for Common Ground’s 20-acre campus and adjacent forested land. We seek a individual contractor or firm who can:

  • Manage successful implementation of forest restoration and stewardship activities – including planting, invasives management, and stewardship of existing and new plantings – ensuring that we reach goals and deliverables in our plan, and tracking progress toward the deliverables in the grant funding this plan. 
  • Perform on the ground, hands-on planting, invasive management, and stewardship work (approximately 8-12 hrs/week).
  • Provide training and coaching to members of Common Ground’s site team and other staff working to enact the forest management plan – maintaining and checking progress against a schedule of management activities, ensuring implementation of management best practices, and building the long-term capacity of this team to steward our urban forest.  
  • Train and supervise crews of 3-6 Common Ground High School students working on these forest management activities through Common Ground’s Green Jobs Corps program (4 hours/week for 12 weeks fall,  4 hours/week for 12 weeks spring, 20 hours/week for 5 weeks summer), and maintain ongoing communication with our Green Jobs Corps coordinator and director to support the success of these students.

Applicants should provide a proposal/cover letter and business overview or resume describing relevant experience. 

Responsibilities/Duties

Priority forest management activities to be implemented over the contract period include:

  • Plant and steward heat-tolerant, high-production sugar maples and fruit-bearing trees and shrubs to expand areas of productive, publicly accessible food forest and sugarbush on our campus. 
  • Create and monitor protected forest restoration zones within our forest classrooms, while also addressing hazard trees and branches. 
  • Control invasives including autumn olive, multiflora rose, and burning bush along the forest edge, and plant white pine and red cedar (for habitat, invasive management, and temperature control), serviceberry, and other native species in their place 
  • Plant nutrient-absorbing species (e.g., sassafras) to reduce nutrient loading and other wetland shrubs like native viburnums and spicebush to stabilize soils in drainage areas below our animal yards that are prone to erosion and overland flow.
  • Continue and refine an annual maintenance regime that helps native grasses and wildflowers outcompete mugwort, while planting additional trees to shade out invasives, increase habitat value, and sequester carbon. 
  • Remove invasive vines that are threatening canopy trees, and invasive understory plants that are preventing regeneration – radiating outward from our campus into West Rock Ridge State Park, and along Wintergreen Brook.  

Qualifications/Requirements

This contract will extend from September 2024 to June 2026, pending final contracting from a grant approved by the CT DEEP Urban Forest Capacity-Building Program. The contractor will bill Common Ground monthly for their work toward the deliverables above, averaging 16 hours of work per week, at $40 per hour. Contractors will have access to a materials budget to support this work, and our partners at the Urban Resources Initiative are committed to providing and planting additional trees to help reach project goals. 

The contractor will work closely with Chris Ozyck and other staff of the Urban Resources Initiative, who developed the forest management plan that this contractor is helping to implement, and with members of our project oversight team: Site Manager, Farm Director, Director of Community Programs, and Director of Community Impact & Engagement. This team will meet with the contractor monthly (more frequently if needed) to monitor progress and plan next steps.

Contact Information

New Haven Ecology Project
Contact Name: Joel Tolman
Email: jtolman@commongroundct.org
Website: Apply Online