Tender Details
The National Parks and Wildlife Act (1974) is a core piece of legislation defining the conservation responsibilities of the New South Wales National Parks and Wildlife Service. In the context of bushfire, the agency is focused on reducing or mitigating the risk from bushfire to life, property, and cultural and natural heritage. Consistent with the NPWS Act, fire management aims to deliver effective and ecologically sustainable fire regimes that conserve biodiversity and heritage values, maximise carbon storage, foster hosting of recreational and tourism opportunities, and provide ecological services such as production of clean water while mitigating the risks to these diverse values. An increasing area of the NSW conservation estate is being managed jointly by NPWS and traditional Indigenous owners. Managing parks to protect ‘places, objects and features of significance to Aboriginal people’is mandated under the National Parks and Wildlife Act (1974).
Because bushfire is such a complex phenomenon and operates at a landscape scale, regardless of land tenure, achieving organizational goals and legislated responsibilities is not a trivial task, and must be informed by knowledge, much of which is fragmented and rudimentary, where it exists at all. Increasingly, fire management in Australia is undertaken within a risk framework, where the objective of management is to mitigate risk to multiple requirements. Research is therefore critical to the development of cost-effective policies and management practices that mitigate bushfire risk, such that NPWS and its partner management organisations can achieve their land management objectives.
Over the years, OEH has developed in-house fire research capability to inform the management and policy actions needed to give effect to the objects in this Act and support other priorities. However, fire management in the 21st century is becoming increasingly complex. In response, OEH has expanded its research capacity in the areas of fire management, fire effects and fire behaviour through a co-investment model with the NSW Rural Fire Service (RFS), several universities, especially the University of Wollongong (through the Centre for Environmental Risk Management of Bushfires: CERMB), and the Bushfire and Natural Hazards Co-operative Research Centre.
This model has allowed OEH to encourage high quality research in areas needed to enhance support for its policy and land management decisions, thus expanding on the in-house capacity of its own researchers. A significant part of the research conducted through CERMB has been by collaboration between OEH research staff and university-based researchers employed by the Centre.
For further information please download the RFT Documents
