Developmental evaluation of marine conservation management measures.

Tender description

The Authority seeks to design and implement a developmental evaluation of marine conservation management measures. The project’s objective is to: • Design an evaluation framework to review processes used by the MMO when producing and implementing marine conservation management measures and subsequent output impacts to examine if they are achieving the collective positive improvement expected from MPA implementation. Furthermore, identify indicators to illustrate what effectiveness and success would look like based on the ambitions set out in the MMO Story for marine conservation. The framework will be implemented over a three-year period to evaluate the whole scope of work. The evaluation framework should support: • The identification of a comprehensive and effective evaluation process that tracks the processes used and impacts in terms of contributing to aims of the MPA network, meeting legal and policy requirements, addressing climate change, building resilience, achieving restoration, and producing positive social and economic outputs. • The assessment and deeper understanding of the initial negative and positive outcomes of conservation management measures as the programme proceeds to inform recommendations on how these can be minimised/maximised going forward. • The exploration into whether development processes used were widely agreed to be fair, accessible, transparent, and legitimate and if not, put forward recommendations for change. • The exploration into whether processes currently used optimise ecological, social and economic outcomes and if so/not, why and what changes are required? • The provision of recommendations on how to communicate the outputs of the evaluation most effectively to different audiences to highlight the changes the MMO will be implementing as a consequence of what they have learned?