Population, Health and Environment Ethiopia Consortium (PHE EC) in Partnership with Oromia Forest and Wild life enterprise (OFWE) is implementing a project in Yayu Biosphere reserve with intent to improve the Conservation of Biodiversity and Ecosystems Functions of the biosphere and to improve the livelihood of the community living in and around the Biosphere.
As one of its objectives, the project is trying to improve the management of the biosphere by introducing multi-sectoral multi stakeholder participatory management. Accordingly, multi-sectoral multi stakeholder taskforces are established at various levels, starting from kebele to zonal level and they are actively participating and making joint decisions concerning the biosphere reserve. To enhance and strengthen this participatory management and ensure the management practices are guided by universally accepted framework and principle, developing a management plan for the biosphere is found to be indispensible. PHE EC in collaboration with the zonal and Woreda administrations,the taskforces at all levels,OFWE and GIZ/UNIQUEand other partners are trying to facilitate the management plan preparation process. The plan is expected to be a ten years plan to be reviewed every five years which guides management practices and development and operation of programs within the biosphere to ensure Yayu biosphere reserve remains a learning site that cultivates harmony between people and nature.
So, with this background, PHE EC wishes to enlist the service of a suitably qualified and experienced consultant organization which can facilitate a wide range of local community and other stakeholders’ conversation, compile views, analyse it with experts at zonal and regional level and develop draft management plan for the biosphere.
About Yayu biosphere reserve
Yayu Coffee Forest Biosphere Reserve is one of the four UNESCO registered biosphere reserves in Ethiopia. It was designated as UNESCO biosphere reserve in 2010 in order to conserve and sustainably use the wild populations of Arabica coffee (CoffeeArabica) and associated forest biodiversity. The forest is part of the afro montane rainforest in southwestern Ethiopia, and the largest and most important forest area with the wild populations of Arabica coffee (Gole et al. 2002; Gole 2003; Gole et al. 2008; Gole et al. 2009).
The Biosphere Reserve has three major functions: conservation function, development function, and logistic support function (education, research and monitoring). It integrates these functions through a landscape management approach that partitions the broader landscape into core area, buffer zone and transition area. It covers an area of about 167,021 hectares. The Core zone is dense forest covering ca. 27,733 ha, and is set aside primarily for the conservation of the coffee genetic resources and associated forest biodiversity in situ. The area is characterized by rich species diversity. Close to 300 species of plants were recorded from few sample plots within the area (Gole, 2003). In total, 450 higher plants, 50 mammals, 200 birds and 20 amphibian species have been reported in all habitat types within the biosphere reserve.
The Core area is surrounded by a buffer zone of managed forest used by the local communities for coffee, honey, spices and other non-timber forest products production. The Buffer zone covers ca. 21,552 hectares. In the long run, it is planned to expand buffer zone by rehabilitating degraded areas in the area, towards the transition area. The Buffer zone also protects the core area from external pressure coming from the Transition area.
The Buffer zone is surrounded by the Transition area that covers 117,736 ha. The transition area represents development zone in which people live, practice agriculture and other means of livelihood. The success of conserving biodiversity in the core area depends on improvements of the livelihood of the local community living in the transition area and sustainable management of the buffer zone.
The entire biosphere reserve is stretches over six Woredas. Doreni Woreda fully falls within the boundary of the biosphere reserve, and the transition areas of this Woreda falls right in between two blocks of the buffer and core areas of the biosphere reserve. Over 50% of the core area of the biosphere reserve also falls within this Woreda. Hence, the communities residing in this Woreda play an important role on the fate of the biosphere reserve. The other five Woredas include: Yayu, Bilo Nopa, Algie Sachi, Hurumu and Chora.
Objectives
The overall objective of developing this plan is to support the strengthening of responsible management and conservation of the biodiversity and natural resources of Yayu Biosphere reserve and to ensure sustainable and equitable sharing of benefits thereof.
The specific objectives are:
The consultant must:
The total time required for this assignment is sevenmonths (October 1, 2016 – April 30, 2017). But the consultant will not be working throughout all this time in the field and this should be clearly given in the detailed technical proposal.
Terms of Payment
Submission of Proposals
Interested and qualified professionals/firms may send/submit their proposals, along with the following information:
Technical Proposal consisting of:
Criteriafor selecting the best offer
Upon the advertisement of the Procurement Notice, qualified consulting firmis expected to submit both the Technical and Financial Proposals. Accordingly; firms will be evaluated based on Cumulative Analysis as per the following scenario:
Responsive/compliant/acceptable, and Having received the highest score out of a pre-determined set of weighted technical and financial criteria specific to the solicitation. In this regard, the respective weight of the proposals are: