Description of the contract
Hiraeth yn y Môr is a Conwy & Denbighshire-based, community-driven project focussed on growing Ocean Literacy as a means to support the sustainable management of the Liverpool Bay/Bay Lerpwl SPA. Led by the Marine Conservation Society, the project will inspire and empower communities to protect their local marine natural heritage through a variety of nature-based, indoor and virtual public engagement, educational outreach and citizen science activities around key themes, including (but not limited to); water quality, pollution, marine protection, marine policy and ocean health. Through establishing and facilitating a community ocean literacy forum, the project will apply the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015 Ways of Working, supporting Wales’ progression towards achieving the national well-being goals.
Ocean Literacy is an increasingly emergent concept. The way in which we measure growth in Ocean Literacy and its potential in contributing to community-scale and national-scale sustainable management efforts are still poorly understood. This will be a ground-breaking project, whereby the overarching aim of the monitoring and evaluation will be to further our UK-wide understanding of how growing Ocean Literacy can directly and indirectly improve the state of our natural resources, whilst benefitting the health & well-being of local communities. Ultimately, we want to support communities to become more knowledgeable on the ocean, skilled in taking positive action and both confident and motivated to engage with decision-making processes that impact their local area and marine natural heritage. Whilst outputs of the monitoring and evaluation should be primarily targeted towards scientific and policy-making audiences, publicly accessible versions for the general public and local stakeholders should be made available.
To effectively capture the learning of this project, we are commissioning an external consultant / consultancy / researcher / practitioner to undertake ongoing monitoring and evaluation across the duration of this project, to achieve the following;
- Development of an effective framework for measuring growth in Ocean Literacy, meaningful engagement and impact on sustainable management of our natural resources, exploring the possibility for replication across other MCS engagement work
- Monitor quality and depth of engagement with under-served communities
- Identify community-scale areas of opportunity and impact linked with growing Ocean Literacy and sustainable management of our natural resources, exploring whether these opportunities can be scaled up / replicated elsewhere
- Review the impact of adopting the Well-being of Future Generations Act Ways of Working and a transdisciplinary approach to community engagement
- Identify key challenges and solutions for all the above
- Contribute to widening our understanding of the potential role of Ocean Literacy in sustainable management of our natural resources, including how we can maximise the sustainability/ legacy/ longer-term impacts of this project beyond the scope of the funding period
* PLEASE NOTE: For full details of contract, please read the attached Invitation to Tender document *
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