2020-09-14 GC Agenda - Item 7 - Attachment 2 - Independent Scientific Review of Monitoring and Evaluation Plan

    2. Incorporate recommendations for longer term monitoring as part of the final project report.
Legacy is the extent to which project impacts will continue over time after funding ceases (Roberts et al.,
2018). The Project Plan and MER Plan don’t explicitly address legacy but there is evidence that legacy has
been considered in the overall project design. Monitoring of project legacy (impacts) should be addressed
by incorporating recommendations for ongoing monitoring as part of the final project report, when the
performance of the current project and its MER are known and future resources and capability understood.

    3. Consider further development of socio-economic monitoring and assessment methods.
Biophysical and ecological monitoring and assessment methods are well established and clearly described
in the MER Plan The monitoring and assessment methods provided for the socio-economic target are fairly
generic and could be further developed. If socio-economic outcomes are important then the project should
engage someone with appropriate skills to further develop this component of the MER Plan.


      4. Collect, maintain and store provenance records of any species introduced to the site.
It is good practice for the provenance records of any species introduced to the site to be kept, if oyster spat
or mature oysters are translocated from elsewhere (directly or via a nursery).

    5. Evaluate the partnership and share learnings
The Partnership agreement aspires to demonstrate a ‘leading example’ of a collaborative alliance that
‘achieves superior outcomes’. As well as learning about oyster restoration, the project should also evaluate,
and reflect on the learnings about the Partnership itself. Partners should contract a third party to facilitate a
partnership evaluation near the end of the current project (June 2022). Findings should inform future
partnering arrangements between Noosa Council and TNC, and may also be helpful to other organisations
considering similar arrangements.


Longer-term monitoring, beyond the life of the current project.
The objectives and design of future monitoring efforts beyond the current three-year project will depend
upon:
     The success of the project (whether ecological and other targets have been met);
     The likely trajectory of ecological measures beyond that time (whether restored oyster beds are still
        developing, stabilised or at risk);
     Whether additional oyster restoration sites or relevant estuarine management activities are
        planned or ongoing;
     Whether the partnership with TNC is expected to continue; and
     The availability of resources, scientific and community monitoring capacity.
Recommendation 2 above suggests that the final report include a set of recommendations for longer-term
monitoring (e.g. in the phase 2 technical report). TNC, as the project manager, will be best placed to make
those recommendations at that time, using the information, models and other decision support tools
available from the Noosa project and other, related TNC restoration projects.




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