Nursery Manager – Spekboom Restoration Project

About the role

NatCarbon Africa, a mission-driven African organisation focused on large-scale carbon, climate and biodiversity projects, is recruiting a Nursery Manager for its Spekboom Restoration Project in Jansenville, Eastern Cape. The project aims to restore up to 100,000 hectares of degraded subtropical thicket biome by planting Spekboom (Portulacaria afra) on privately owned land, storing large amounts of CO2 and improving soil filtration, water storage and biodiversity. The Nursery Manager leads the production of 20–30 million high-quality Spekboom plants per year using the Ellepot propagation system, reporting to the Nursery Director.

Key responsibilities

• Plan, direct and oversee propagation of 20 million saleable plants annually, from cutting procurement to dispatch, and set production targets aligned to field planting schedules.
• Lead the Integrated Management Team, managing the company-side staff and overseeing the service provider's Operations Manager, while ensuring health and safety protocols are followed.
• Oversee quality screening and rogueing at each stage, ensuring compliance with the Plant Quality Index (PQI) and Standard Operating Procedures, and lead responses to disease outbreaks or production failures.
• Manage the nursery operating budget, authorise procurement within delegated authority, track costs of production and report weekly and monthly operational reports to the Nursery Director.
• Maintain data integrity in MyCrops and the KoBo digital field system, including the Rogueing Register, and produce management dashboards and forecasts.
• Ensure staff are trained in the Ellepot system, biosecurity and digital data capture, manage seasonal labour needs, and comply with South African OHS legislation and biosecurity protocols.

The role involves supervising teams in remote outdoor settings, some travel within the Eastern and Western Cape, occasional weekend or holiday work, and irregular hours.