Membership/Volunteer: Internships

Interning with Hells Canyon Preservation Council is a life changing experience.

Whether you are monitoring grazing allotments, organizing volunteer riparian restoration plantings, researching timber sales on public lands, leading a wildflower hike, or writing articles for publication, your first hand involvement will bring you into the middle of diverse environmental issues and actions.

Whether you are an undergraduate or graduate, in the field of environmental law or resource management or wildlife science or public policy or community organizing, you will find projects that use your background and offer opportunities to deepen and expand your knowledge and perspective.

Position: Legal Internship (Summer 2010, full or part-time, La Grande, OR)

Description: This position allows law students to spend their summer surrounded by breathtaking wildlands, putting recently acquired legal skills to practice defending our natural resources at various stages of the administrative law process and federal litigation. Laws at issue generally include the Wilderness Act, Clean Water Act, Clean Air Act, NEPA, FLPMA, NFMA, Endangered Species Act, and the Wild & Scenic River Act. Our concerns are usually related to logging, road-building, livestock grazing, mining, and motorized vehicle use.

Duties: Duties will include drafting in-house litigation memos, fact gathering, legal research, and overall preparation of public land related cases from administrative agency comments and appeals, to complaint stage, and through litigation briefing on the merits. There will also be opportunities for getting outdoors and doing ground-truthing field work!

Qualifications: Commitment to public interest environmental work, strong legal research and writing skills, and ability to work well independently.

Application process: Please send cover letter, resume, and writing sample via e-mail to: Jennifer Schwartz, Staff Attorney/Campaign Director, jennifer at hellscanyon dot org or for more details call 541-963-3950 x23 This is an unpaid position, however, we can help arrange free hosted housing or financially assist with affordable housing options. We will also gladly assist students seeking public interest law stipends or federal work-study compensation.

Position: Wildlife Biology Research Volunteer/Internship (year-round, flexible schedule/location, approx. 5-10 hrs/wk)

Description: Conduct research on the habitat requirements and movement characteristics of terrestrial wildlife species native to the Blue Mountains ecoregion to support HCPC’s wildlife connectivity corridors mapping project.

Duties: Compile research on home range sizes, dispersal patterns, and other habitat attributes for a taxonomically diverse range of focal species including (gray wolves, wolverine, marten, elk, bighorn sheep, sage grouse, frogs, toads, turtles, and more). Compile research on exiting connectivity models for these focal species. Prepare a spreadsheet of focal species’ habitat and movement attributes.

Qualifications: College students with basic knowledge of wildlife biology, conservation biology, or ecology. Competency in researching scientific literature and access to science journals. Spreadsheet competency helpful. Ability to work well independently.

Contact: Jennifer Schwartz, Connectivity Campaign Director at 541-963-3950 x23 or jennifer at hellscanyon dot org. This is a volunteer position, but we will gladly assist students with obtaining work-study or class credit.