Data Scientist

NatCarbon Africa is seeking a Data Scientist for the Spekboom Restoration Project in Gqeberha, Eastern Cape, South Africa. The role involves developing and managing data systems, integrating diverse datasets, and applying analytical methods to support carbon monitoring and ecological restoration efforts. The position focuses on enhancing data integrity and efficiency for one of South Africa's largest landscape restoration initiatives, promoting biodiversity and climate change mitigation.
Data Scientist, Spekboom Restoration Project


Technical and Carbon Department, Eastern Cape (Gqeberha), South Africa


Location: Gqeberha, Eastern Cape


Reports to: GIS and Data Lead


Are you ready to embark on an extraordinary adventure that will revitalise landscapes, combat climate change, and promote sustainable agriculture?


Join NatCarbon Africa: a mission-driven, proudly African organisation dedicated to high-quality implementation of large-scale carbon, climate, and biodiversity projects. We embrace the power of innovative technology to enhance project execution. Community engagement lies at the heart of our projects, driven by a genuine commitment to meaningful and inclusive participation and co-benefits, such as biodiversity conservation and socioeconomic upliftment.


NatCarbon Africa seeks a Data Scientist in the Technical and Carbon Department for the large-scale Spekboom Restoration Project in the Eastern and Western Cape Provinces of South Africa.


With our partner, Imperative Global, our aim is to restore up to 100,000 hectares of degraded subtropical thicket biome. The Project entails planting Spekboom (Portulacaria afra) on privately owned land to improve ecosystem functioning and agricultural productivity over time, promote biodiversity, improve soil filtration, enhance water storage capabilities, and to reduce soil erosion. The Project is estimated to permanently store large quantities of Carbon Dioxide over the Project life, thus positively contributing towards climate change mitigation.


Position Summary
The Data Scientist will be responsible for designing, developing, and maintaining data systems and analytical workflows within the Technical and Carbon Team. The role focuses on structuring, integrating, and analysing diverse social, ecological, spatial, and carbon datasets to support data-driven decision-making and robust carbon monitoring.
Working closely with the Technical and Carbon Team, the Data Scientist will play a key role in ensuring data integrity, developing automated data pipelines, and applying statistical and machine learning approaches to generate insights that enhance the efficiency, monitoring, and impact of NatCarbon’s restoration programmes.


This position sits at the intersection of ecological restoration, carbon monitoring, and advanced data analytics, supporting one of South Africa’s largest landscape-scale restoration initiatives.


Roles and Responsibilities
Data Systems Development & Management

Design, develop, and maintain databases and data management systems to store and manage social, ecological, spatial, and carbon datasets.


Implement scalable data pipelines ensuring efficient extraction, transformation, and loading (ETL) of data from field systems, remote sensing platforms, and operational databases.
Develop and maintain automated data workflows to support routine monitoring, reporting, and analysis.
Implement data validation, governance, and quality control processes to ensure the accuracy and integrity of project datasets.
Maintain documentation and reproducible data workflows to support transparency, collaboration, and long-term project data management.
Optimise data storage and processing infrastructure to support the increasing scale of restoration monitoring activities.

Data Analysis & Insights Generation

Analyse ecological, carbon, and social datasets to generate insights that support restoration planning, monitoring, and carbon credit assessments.
Apply statistical and machine learning techniques to model ecosystem recovery trends, carbon sequestration rates, and other restoration outcomes.
Develop predictive models for ecosystem recovery trajectories, carbon sequestration rates, and biodiversity dynamics.


Integrate spatial and non-spatial datasets to support landscape-scale analysis and restoration monitoring.
Develop dashboards, automated reports, and data visualisations to communicate insights effectively to both technical and non-technical stakeholders.
Support the development of analytical approaches that strengthen monitoring, reporting, and verification (MRV) processes for restoration and carbon projects.

Collaboration & Stakeholder Engagement

Work closely with the Technical and Carbon Team to align data initiatives with field operations, monitoring systems, and research objectives.


Collaborate with the Data and GIS Team to integrate spatial datasets and support landscape-scale environmental analysis.
Engage with external researchers, universities, and technical partners to integrate emerging data science methodologies into project workflows.
Provide training and technical support to team members on data tools, analytics platforms,