Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water / Panel for provision of koala field surveys associated with the Koala Likelihood Map - Tender_1473

The Office of Environment and Heritage (OEH) (the Agency) is seeking to establish a panel of suitably experienced and skilled Contractors for the delivery of koala field survey work across NSW. The need for these services has arisen from the recommendations of the NSW Chief Scientist and Engineer’s report into the decline of koala populations in key areas of NSW (CSE 2016). Specifically, the report recommended that a field survey program be developed to update the Koala Likelihood Map (KLM) (see Section 10, Appendix 1), a useful tool that predicts the likelihood of koalas occurring across NSW (at a 10-km² spatial scale) based on past records and further provides a measure of the confidence in the likelihood measure (Predavec et al 2015). This recommendation has been included as a key action in the draft NSW Koala Strategy (OEH 2017).

The intent of the KLM Update Field Survey Program (the Program) is to increase the KLM’s statistical confidence measure in key areas of NSW by targeting survey towards areas with few past records, and therefore low confidence in the likelihood estimate. Data collected by Contractors during the field surveys will also contribute to the validation of predictive koala habitat suitability and tree species models, which together with the updated KLM will help inform management decisions and actions to better protect koalas and their habitat across NSW.

The field survey work will be distributed as discrete work packages spread across the seven Koala Management Areas (KMAs) of NSW (see Section 10, Appendix 2) as per the NSW Koala Recovery Plan (Department of Environment and Climate Change 2008). OEH will identify specific KLM 10-km² grid cells (focus grid cells) to focus survey within the KMAs.

Each work package under the Program will involve surveying for koalas and their scats at pre-selected survey sites within several focus grid cells using the Spot Assessment Technique (SAT)(Phillips and Callaghan 2011). In addition, a vegetation assessment (focusing on the upper stratum) will be conducted at each site.

Tenderers may indicate in the Tender Response (Part C) to be considered for work in one or more of the KMAs. A number of successful Tenderers will be appointed onto the panel for each of the seven KMAs, and each successful Tenderer may be appointed for multiple KMAs. OEH may, at its discretion, engage with any number of Contractors on the panel to carry out work under the Program in accordance with the Panel Agreement. Tenderers should be aware that their potential inclusion on the panel will in no way guarantee them any work.

The Program is being overseen and managed by OEH Science Division (Conservation Science Team) and will run from July 2018 to June 2019. The term of the Panel Arrangement will be one year to cover the life of the Program.

For further information please refer to the RFT Documents

Refer to Additional Details / Instructions

Please refer to the RFT (Request for Tender) Documents