Scientific and Information Technology Services to the Private Forest Reserves Program

The Tasmanian Regional Forest Agreement (RFA) signed in 1997, resulted in $30 million dollars being made available from the Natural Heritage Trust (NHT) and from a special Commonwealth grant, to protect forest communities on private land which could not be adequately protected on public land. The objective of the Private Forest Reserves Program (PFRP) is "... to protect values on private land by the voluntary participation of private landowners in the CAR Reserve System" in accordance with the principles set out in Attachment 8 of the Tasmanian Regional Forest Agreement. The target for the PRFP is to secure long-term conservation of about 100,000 hectares of targeted forest ecosystems on private land, which is not adequately protected in the formal reserve system. Landowners voluntarily enter into agreements with the PFRP to protect and manage high conservation priority forest types or rare and threatened species, preferably in perpetuity, through conservation covenants and management agreements. The tenderer will need to provide scientific and information technology services to the Private Forest Reserves Program for a period of up to 2 years, depending on funding.