NI Post

Tender description

Capacity Building for Bird Monitoring in Northern Ireland 2014-2017 – BTO NI Officer part-time post. The BTO is seeking to contract the services of a BTO Northern Ireland Project Officer (part-time) to enhance the capacity for bird monitoring in Northern Ireland and the collection, interpretation and applied use of biodiversity data, by: - recruiting and upskilling volunteers via a strategic programme of engagement activities each year, enabling them to contribute (in ways that are enjoyable and beneficial to them) to the large scale bird monitoring surveys that are managed by BTO, and that underpin conservation priority setting in NI; - managing the current part-time NI Seabird Coordinator and providing strategic input to the NI Seabird Network and the annual programme of seabird monitoring-related activities in NI; and - providing day-to-day management and strategic advice to the new full-time BTO NI Scientific Officer (from March 2016). The specific project objectives are as follows: - To improve capacity to assess the population status of wild birds in Northern Ireland, and to use these trends to develop an annual indicator of wild bird populations as a means of assessing changes in wider biodiversity. - To enhance the gathering of bird monitoring data in terrestrial, freshwater and marine environments in NI. - To increase the number of volunteer bird surveyors - To increase the skills of volunteer bird surveyors - To reduce the need for professional fieldworkers to conduct key surveys It will also be necessary for the Project Officer to report against a series of quantitative targets, as follows: - Increase in environmental awareness generated; - Increase in physical activity generated; - Sense of ownership generated; - Improved confidence levels achieved; - Improved data collection achieved; and - More robust policy and planning achieved