O-AQU2022-06 (406814) - Environmental Health Measures for Open Ocean Aquaculture

Details

Tender Closed
RFx ID :	25961128
Tender Name :	O-AQU2022-06 (406814) - Environmental Health Measures for Open Ocean Aquaculture
Reference # :	O-AQU2022-06 (406814)
Open Date :	Q2 2022
Indicative RFx Release Date  :	Q2 2022  [?]
Department/Business Unit :	Fisheries New Zealand
Tender Type :	Future Procurement Opportunity (FPO)
Project Status :	Initial development  [?]
Indicative Total Value :	$500K - $1M  [?]
Expected number of contracts offered :	1
Tender Coverage :	Sole Agency  [?]
Categories :	70000000 - Farming and Fishing and Forestry and Wildlife Contracting Services
Regions:	New Zealand
Required Pre-qualifications :	None
Contact :	Chloe Wilson
Agency Address :

Overall Objective:

To understand how organic enrichment, at levels anticipated for open ocean aquaculture (OOA) in dispersive environments, impacts on species that can be used as indicators of environmental health.

Specific Objectives:

1. Identify key sessile and/or mobile epifaunal or infaunal species that are likely to occur in dispersive environments that may be affected by low level organic enrichment derived from open ocean finfish aquaculture.
2. Define the effects of low levels of organic enrichment on the health of key species identified in Specific Objective 1.
3. Assess the potential magnitude and effect of low level organic enrichment from OOA on environmental/ecosystem health.
4. Broader outcomes.

Rationale:

Sustainable development of aquaculture in New Zealand needs to be supported by good quality information on ecological effects that enable appropriate decision making. Existing finfish farming activities in New Zealand have been primarily located within inshore, sheltered environments. The development of finfish farms in more dispersive open ocean environments presents new challenges for developing appropriate impact measures and monitoring tools.
There is a paucity of knowledge on assessing the health of open ocean environments and the tolerance of the associated habitats and species to finfish farming derived changes, such as organic enrichment. This makes it difficult to assess the potential impacts of establishing OOA or to set meaningful consent conditions and monitoring guidelines. An additional challenge will be to link potential impacts to outcomes that are meaningful in terms of observable effects on the wider ecosystem. These linkages will be of particular importance to Māori where a holistic view of environmental interactions is manifested through mātauranga Māori. The proposal submitted by researchers should reflect mātauranga Māori principles in their design and outcomes. The project provides the opportunity for research providers to develop new methods for assessing the health of a range of open ocean benthic species that are potentially subject to low level organic enrichment.

This tender has been completed.

Date RFx was completed/updated: Tuesday, 2 August 2022 10:45 AM (Pacific/Auckland UTC+12:00)