National Landcare Program: Regional Land Partnerships Transcript
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National Landcare Program: Regional Land Partnerships presented on 8 September 2017 - Transcript by Emma Campbell, Peter Ottesen Transcript National Landcare Program: Regional Land Partnerships September 2017
PRESENTED BY:
Emma Campbell Assistant Secretary, Department of the Environment and Energy
Peter Ottesen Assistant Secretary, Department of Agriculture and Water Resources
[Opening visual of slide with text saying ‘Australian Government with Crest (logo)’, ‘National Landcare Program’, ‘September 2017’, ‘National Landcare Program: Regional Land Partnerships’, ‘Presented by’, ‘Emma Campbell – Department of the Environment and Energy’, ‘Peter Ottesen – Department of Agriculture and Water Resources’]
[The visuals during this webinar are of the presenter and panellists seated on stage, speaking with reference to the content of a PowerPoint presentation being played on a large background screen]
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Emma Campbell:
Hi. My name’s Emma Campbell and I’m an Assistant Secretary in the Department of Environment and Energy looking after the National Landcare Program.
We’re here today to talk about the National Landcare Program, which is a program delivered jointly by the Department of Environment and Energy and the Department of Agriculture and Water Resources. Some parts of the program are delivered jointly, including the Regional Land Partnerships Program, and some are delivered separately.
This webcast is one in a series of webcasts talking about the program. The previous webcast where we talked about the program as a whole is available on the NRM website.
Page 1 of 8 National Landcare Program: Regional Land Partnerships presented on 8 September 2017 - Transcript by Emma Campbell, Peter Ottesen Peter Ottesen:
Hello and welcome. My name is Peter Ottesen, and I’m the Assistant Secretary in the Department of Agriculture and Water Resources, responsible for the National Landcare Program.
Today in this second video we’ll give you more details about the National Landcare Program, and in particular the Regional Partnerships Program.
Emma Campbell:
The Department of Environment and Energy and the Department of Agriculture and Water Resources would like to pay our respects to the traditional custodians from the land on which we meet. Here in Canberra that’s the Ngunnawal and Ngambri people, and there’s a range of traditional owners across the country.
Traditional owners and indigenous people have contributed greatly to the National Landcare Program and outcomes. We want to pay our respect to their contribution and their continuing contribution to the lives of Australia.
Peter Ottesen:
Today we’ll start with a brief overview of what was covered in the first webcast. We’ll then describe our proposed new approach to delivery of the Regional Land Partnerships Program. For those who are interested in hearing about Agriculture’s Smart Farms Program, which is also funded from the National Landcare Program, there is a second video and it’s available at the website nrm.gov.au and I encourage you to visit that.
Emma Campbell:
In the first webcast we gave you an overview of the National Landcare Program. We spoke about the findings of the 2016 review of the program and how those findings have helped us shape the next phase of the program, including the program we’re discussing today.
Peter Ottesen:
We announced new programs, including a regional program, a smart farms program and the funding allocated to each. We also spoke about the information consultation activities we’re planning to undertake over the next few weeks. You can access the first webcast at the website nrm.gov.au.
Page 2 of 8 National Landcare Program: Regional Land Partnerships presented on 8 September 2017 - Transcript by Emma Campbell, Peter Ottesen Emma Campbell:
The 2016 review of the National Landcare Program identified key strengths of regional delivery, and we’re looking to build upon those. The strengths include national coverage, working with community to achieve outcomes, strategic planning and the ability to deliver integrated agriculture and environment outcomes.
We’re looking to maintain these strengths, however we need to consider ways to improve efficiency and effectiveness of the program. This may be for example through increased leveraging, support for partnerships and connecting with new organisations that have not previously been engaged with the program.
Peter Ottesen:
The government’s considering using a competitive approach to delivering the Regional Land Partnerships Program using an open tender procurement to select and engage service providers to deliver the program outcomes.
We will continue to use the current NRM regions and their boundaries, and as you know there are currently 56 of those, but under the new program and for the purposes of this tender, they’ll be referred to as management units. We’re looking to engage service providers for each management unit to deliver the outcomes through a mix of core services and projects. We’ll talk more about this later.
Emma Campbell:
So under the Regional Land Partnerships Program we’re looking to address a number of outcomes. There are six outcomes. Four are environment focused and two are agriculture focused outcomes. These outcomes will deliver against key Commonwealth priorities. For example the environment priorities deliver against matters of national environment significance as defined under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act. They build on other government programs and investments, for example the Commonwealth Environment Water Holder, the Threatened Species Commissioner, and our investment in world heritage management.
The first of the Regional Land Partnerships outcomes is to maintain or improve the ecological character of Ramsar sites. These significant wetlands are listed under the Ramsar Convention. Australia was one of the first signatories to the Convention, signing up in 1971. Under the Convention we conserve the biological diversity of important wetland sites. There are 65 Ramsar sites across Australia and they cover 8.1 million hectares.
Page 3 of 8 National Landcare Program: Regional Land Partnerships presented on 8 September 2017 - Transcript by Emma Campbell, Peter Ottesen The second outcome aims to improve the trajectory of priority species listed under the Threatened Species Strategy. The Strategy outlines priorities in this work and plans to work together with communities, state and territory governments and others to reverse the decline of the threatened species in the Strategy and improve their recovery.
The Australian government has an obligation to conserve and protect Australia’s world heritage sites. This third outcome supports this obligation by seeking to maintain or enhance the outstanding universal values of Australia’s world heritage areas, focusing on those areas listed for their natural heritage or mixed heritage values. In particular it will support efforts to reduce threats from invasive species to these places.
The final environmental outcome supports Australia’s threatened ecological communities. Ecological communities are groups of native plants, animals or other organisms that interact in a unique habitat. Ecological communities can be woodlands, grasslands, forests, wetlands for example. This outcome seeks to improve the condition of threatened ecological communities on private land.
Peter Ottesen:
The fifth and sixth outcomes have an agricultural focus. The fifth outcome is to have an increased awareness and adoption of land management practices that improve and protect the condition of soil, biodiversity and vegetation. It will secure the condition of the natural resources on which agriculture lies and deliver wider environmental benefits to the community.
For example with this outcome there could be less erosion of fragile soils and high levels of soil carbon.
For the sixth outcome, agricultural systems have a capacity to adapt to significant changes in climate, weather and markets. This outcome is about resilience for natural resources and farming communities.
Earlier we confirmed that we will continue with the 56 natural resource management regions, which for the purpose of this tender we’ll be calling the Management Units. Tenders can be accepted from one organisation or a group of organisations acting as a consortia, but we’ll need one organisation if this is to happen.
Each Management Unit needs a single service provider with a capability and a capacity to provide both environmental and agricultural services. We were not looking to contract these services separately.
Page 4 of 8 National Landcare Program: Regional Land Partnerships presented on 8 September 2017 - Transcript by Emma Campbell, Peter Ottesen Finally tenderers, including consortia, can tender for more than one Management Unit, however these tenders will need to address how they will deliver services in each Management Unit separately.
Emma Campbell:
Engagement and participation of the community remains as a key component of regional land partnerships. This includes participation with local Landcare groups and grower groups, and the participation of indigenous communities and the delivery of indigenous natural resource management remain important.
Tenderers will be expected to have the involvement and support of their communities and to work with them to achieve outcomes. In each Management Unit 20 percent of the project budget will need to be used for small on-ground projects and activities that are delivered by or engaged directly with community.
The Commonwealth Indigenous Procurement Policy will also apply. This policy aims to significantly increase the right of purchasing from indigenous enterprises.
Peter Ottesen:
In their tender responses, tenderers will need to put forward a proposal on how they will deliver the core services together with a portfolio of projects that address agricultural and environmental outcomes, and with at least one project that runs for one year and at least one project that runs until the end of the program.
Emma Campbell:
Service providers will also need to deliver core services that support the effective, efficient and economical delivery of integrated natural resource management and address outcomes. These core services include strategic natural resource management planning, community engagement, monitoring, evaluation and reporting, and regional agricultural Landcare services. All of these are key components of the current program.
Strategic natural resource management planning is required to provide long term vision and direction, and for example needs to include the impacts of climate change, adaptation and social and economic impacts.
Page 5 of 8 National Landcare Program: Regional Land Partnerships presented on 8 September 2017 - Transcript by Emma Campbell, Peter Ottesen Reporting on regional land partnerships will make use of the Monitoring, Evaluation, Reporting and Improvement Tool, or MERIT. Regional Agricultural Landcare Facilitator Services will support the delivery of the agriculture outcomes, the fifth and sixth outcomes that we talked about earlier.
Peter Ottesen:
This table displays the indicative weightings at a national level the Departments propose for each category of services to assist service providers in preparing their tenders. These weightings are indicative only, and they could vary for a particular Management Unit when taking into account other factors, for example such as the investment priorities for that Management Unit.
Tenderers should visit the website nrm.gov.au and look at the interactive map showing the priorities for each management unit. This will identify individual priorities for each category of services, for example individual threatened species, Ramsar sites, or soil priorities that occur within each Management Unit. We welcome and encourage tenders that cover the range of relevant services.
Emma Campbell:
We acknowledge that the current contracts under the regional stream of the National Landcare Program expire on 30 June 2018. We’re working to get tenders out quickly. They’ll either open in early December 2017 or mid-January 2018, and will be opened for at least six weeks. We propose to contract a Deed of Standing Offer with successful tenderers before July 2018. This is the overarching contract that will allow the Departments to add work orders for each project that the service provider will deliver.
At this stage we would contract core services for the full five years of the program and on-ground projects for at least the first year of the program, then before December 2018 the remaining onground projects would be contracted. This would complete the five year program allocation.
Peter Ottesen:
There is a document called Overview of Proposed Tender Requirements available at the website nrm.gov.au. It outlines the proposed criteria for evaluating tenders.
A key consideration will be value for money. Tenderers will also need to be able to demonstrate experience providing similar services, and that they have a capacity to deliver the services that address the environmental and agricultural outcomes. Tenderers will also need to demonstrate the ability to work with community and deliver on the outcomes. Pricing, financial viability and risk will also be considerations. Page 6 of 8 National Landcare Program: Regional Land Partnerships presented on 8 September 2017 - Transcript by Emma Campbell, Peter Ottesen Emma Campbell:
Probity at all times during this tender process is vital. This ensures that the process is fair and that all possible tenderers have access to the same information. To ensure this happens we cannot discuss the tender process privately. We will be more than happy to field questions at public consultation events, via email or during tender briefings that will happen once the tender is launched.
Peter Ottesen:
During consultation and while the tender process is underway, any questions and the responses regarding the tender will be recorded and made available to all interested parties to ensure that information is shared equally between potential tenderers.
Any enquiries should be addressed to the National Landcare Program email address which is [email protected].
Emma Campbell:
The Department of the Environment and Energy and the Department of Agriculture and Water Resources will jointly deliver a series of information and consultation events around the country. The information sessions will provide the same information as has been presented in this and our other webcasts. To the extent possible due to probity concerns and fairness, we will also answer and take questions on the National Landcare Program delivery arrangements and the major changes under consideration for the next phase of the program. Questions and answers from all sessions will be available on our website.
Peter Ottesen:
A schedule for the information sessions will be promoted on Facebook and on the nrm.gov.au website. We recommend you monitor these sites regularly for updates and new information.
Emma Campbell:
A consultation paper is available with an attached Overview of Proposed Tender Requirements. I encourage you to read both of these documents, both of which are available on the website. The Overview of Proposed Tender Requirements provides an outline of the key requirements which would potentially be applied to an open procurement process. If you would like to respond to the questions in the consultation paper, please complete the online survey.
Page 7 of 8 National Landcare Program: Regional Land Partnerships presented on 8 September 2017 - Transcript by Emma Campbell, Peter Ottesen Peter Ottesen:
And the link to the questions and the consultation paper can be found on the website nrm.gov.au. We look forward to engaging with you further on this program.
Emma Campbell:
This concludes our presentation on the Regional Land Partnerships Program. Thank you for your participation, and we look forward to engaging you throughout the program.
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[Closing visual of slide with text saying ‘Australian Government with Crest (logo)’, ‘National Landcare Program’, ‘September 2017’, ‘National Landcare Program: Regional Land Partnerships’, ‘Presented by’, ‘Emma Campbell – Department of the Environment and Energy’, ‘Peter Ottesen – Department of Agriculture and Water Resources’]
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