CCIF places emphasis on working with interns, particularly from business graduate schools from the United States and Asia. Interns in the past few years have consistently brought an exciting array of skills and enthusiasm and fresh thinking to our team. In addition, we believe we have been able to educate and develop appreciation for our conservation work and community development work with tomorrow’s leaders as they complete their advanced degree and go on to work with leading management consulting firms, corporations, financial institutions—and sometimes choose to pursue a career in this field. We look forward to future interns joining our team! Please contact our office directly if you are interested in exploring options further.
We provide a highlight of a few of the interns we have worked with over the last few years below.
Emily played an integral role in CCIF’s assessment of strategic options for the Walton Family Foundation’s third phase of investments into marine protected areas (MPAs) in Latin America. Focusing on six MPAs in Ecuador, including the Galapagos Marine Reserve, Emily completed an in-depth analysis of national MPA legislation, policies, and budget allocations. She also focused on site-specific issues like funding and staffing requirements, community buy-in, enforcement and patrolling, and the extent of illegal resource extraction. Through on-line research and interviews with national and provincial authorities, park directors, and representatives of local and international NGOs and ODIs, Emily developed a good understanding of the “state-of-play” and opportunities for further Walton funding. During the internship, Emily traveled with two senior associates to Ecuador for face-to-face interviews. In addition to engaging with interviewees through Q & A, Emily also served as CCIF’s translator.
Emily also completed a financial analysis tracking funding requirements and income streams for five coastal MPAs over a ten-year period. The model takes into account operating expenses, such as patrolling costs and salaries, and investments in capital assets like boats and infrastructure. Costs varied based on each MPA’s current status, size, location, and ecology. This analysis will help the Walton Foundation understand the MPAs’basic funding requirements and funding gaps going forward.
Zoe focused on two tasks throughout her internship. For the first, Zoe lead an analysis and feasibility assessment of establishing a Conservation Trust Fund (CTF) in Cambodia – designing a CTF feasibility template to evaluate the focus and size of an endowment, options for establishing and managing a CTF and considering the proper governance and investment management strategies. Zoe led the effort to collect the information needed, interviewing CTF experts and institutional investment professionals worldwide, and traveling with an associate to Phnom Penh to conduct face-to-face interviews with local and international NGOs, Cambodian legal and financial experts, and international donors. Zoe’s input and the feasibility template and approach she developed has fed into the design of the business plan for the CTF in Cambodia and will contribute to all of CCIF’s work looking at CTFs as part of sustainable finance strategies and portfolios.
In addition, Zoe worked as part of a CCIF team looking at the opportunity for Carbon financing as revenue for conservation. Refining existing CCIF cost model templates, the team refined and developed a financial model to be utilized for Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD) projects. The team created a discounted cash flow valuation model in order to analyze the project's future cash flows, and profit and investment potential. The model was developed to analyze the sensitivity of the cash flows to numerous uncertain future events--such as a rise or fall in the future price of Verified Emission Reductions (carbon credits in the voluntary market), or a gain or loss in the total metric tons of CO2 equivalent available for sale. The model will be useful for understanding of the risks and uncertainties surrounding the carbon trade.
Antonius assisted CCIF on a few specific aspects of creating user friendly financial planning materials and tools for marine protected area (MPA) practitioners. The first area of focus included helping to define key questions related to financial and ecological sustainability in coastal management. He did so by researching existing best practices, case studies, and CCIF experience. With this in hand, Antonius then helped to develop an excel-based initial assessment and financial costing tool. The second area of focus involved researching conservation finance mechanisms and creating a functional database which added to the CCIF development and training materials for MPA leadership. Finally, in-line with the implementation phase of an initial management and costing assessment of a network of MPAs in Raja Ampat, Indonesia, Antonius participated in a series of meetings between CCIF and the relevant conservation organizations to map out network objectives, focus and costs, which assisted with the refinement of the materials mentioned above.
Summary to come