Background
The Bahamas National Trust (BNT) was established by an Act of Parliament in 1959 mandated to develop and manage the National Park System of The Bahamas. Currently, BNT manages 32 National Parks, encompassing more than 2.2 million acres across the Bahamian archipelago.
In 2010 at the 10th meeting of the Conference of the Parties (COP-10) of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) it was noted that the world’s biological resources were still in decline and specially agreed targets known as Aichi Biodiversity Targets were developed and adopted by all of the countries of this convention as a result of the meeting. One of these targets called for the countries to protect 10% of marine and coastal areas by the year 2020. In 2008, a number of Caribbean countries, including The Bahamas, signed on to an agreement to protect and effectively manage 20% of near shore environments by the year 2020.
To help achieve this challenge, The Nature Conservancy (TNC), The BNT, and the Bahamas Reef Environment Educational Foundation (BREEF) are jointly executing a project “Realizing the 2020 Goal” to advance the expansion and effective management of the Marine Protected Area (MPA) Network of The Bahamas to 20% by the year 2020. This 3-year project is funded by Oceans 5 with TNC as the Lead Executing Agency.
One of the objectives of this project is to increase effective management of protected areas within the MPA Network. One output under this objective is to establish a framework for co-management of Protected Areas. As part of this, a pilot project between BNT and a local community group to comanage an existing Marine Park will be implemented. TNC has sub-contracted a consultant to develop the Co-Management framework. As this deliverable is directly related to and impacts the work of the BNT (which manages 95% of Protected Areas in The Bahamas not including the 2015 expansions), the BNT will contract a Co-management Policy Analyst to advance the compilation of the co-management framework, ensuring it aligns with the vision of the BNT. Both consultants will need to work hand-in-hand to deliver a meaningful product that is geared towards yielding actionable results.
This consultancy is being funded under a complimentary project to the “Realizing the 2020 Goal”entitled “Increase Effective Management of Protected Areas within the Bahamas Marine ProtectedArea Network”, with funding through The Nature Conservancy from China Global Conservation Foundation.
Purpose of Consultancy
The Bahamas National Trust is seeking to contract a Co-management Policy Analyst, to provide direct support to the BNT for the development of a Bahamas National Protected Area System Comanagement Framework. This contractor will conduct reviews of BNT’s legal documents and other records associated with the management of the National Park System, and develop a policy for BNT’s engagement with other entities for co-management of National Parks under its mandate. The contractor will be expected to collaborate with the consultant contracted by The Nature Conservancy on outputs related to the co-management of National Parks managed by The Bahamas National Trust.
Scope of Work
- Review the adequacy of The Bahamas legislation framework to support co-management.
- Review BNT’s legal documents, park policies, park management plans, and other relevant documents for updating in order to fulfill the effective management of the national parks within the country.
- Facilitate criteria development for selecting ideal location(s) to implement pilot comanagement strategy.
- Prepare a draft co-management policy for official adoption by The Bahamas National Trust
- Prepare a co-management agreement template for use in future Co-management scenarios.
Timing
This consultancy runs from December 19th, 2016 through May 19th, 2017.
Specific Deliverables
- Produce a report that summarizes the needs of The Bahamas legislation to support comanagement and gaps in the BNT legal, management and policy documents.
- Produce a BNT co-management policy document.
- Develop a co-management agreement template.
- Assist in the planning and implementation of the seminar presentation on the findings of this consultancy.
Qualifications and Experience
The selected consultant should have previous experience in natural resource management and/or policy in The Bahamas or wider Caribbean. Important qualifications include:
- Master’s degree in a relevant field;
- 5 years’ experience in natural resource management; policy development; community consultation; or co-management framework design;
- Any examples of previous co-management policy development provided would be an asset.
- Ability to condense large volumes of information into a succinct, coherent report for conservation practitioners and government officials and;
- Ability to communicate effectively, both orally and in writing.
Electronic proposals are due by 11:59 pm eastern time December 12th, 2016 to:
Mrs. Shelley Cant-Woodside
Director of Science and Policy,
Bahamas National Trust,
Nassau, The Bahamas.
Email: scant@bnt.bs