Expertise in Ornithology

Tender description

The Marine Institute has been tasked by its parent department, The Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (DAFM) to engage in a work programme as follows: Prepare reports in support of the assessment of the impacts of fisheries (risk assessment) and aquaculture (appropriate assessment) activities on the conservation features of Special Protections Areas. In addition, monitoring of a number of SPA sites has been carried to supply baseline shore bird count data as well as monitor the effects of specific mitigation measures. Specifically, the capture of data and subsequent analysis will aid in understanding the interactions between bird species of special conservation interest (SCI) in Special Protection Areas (SPAs), and aquaculture and fisheries activities. This is an important requirement to the management and mitigation of these industries in Natura sites and more widely. The proposed provision of scientific ornithology expertise, through external contract, will provide a facility to better measure and manage the risks to ornithological conservation features from aquaculture and fisheries activities and provide robust scientific advice to DAFM in a timely fashion. At present a requirement exists for the supply of expertise in a single supplier framework contract for a period of up to 18 months from/to. The Marine Institute wishes to invite Applicants to submit a tender, to provide such ornithology expertise service, under an Open Procedure Full details of the service requirements are provided in Section 4 “Service Specification”.