CEFAS21-94 OCPP Plastic Pollution in Seagrass Beds

The Ocean Country Partnership Programme (OCPP) Marine Pollution strand will build on work in countries where Cefas and UK marine partnerships are already active, as well as forge new relationships in priority regions. OCPP Marine Pollution will begin by building on the successes of the Commonwealth Litter Programme (CLiP), using established foundations to expand technical training and capacity building in Overseas Development Assistance (ODA) eligible countries and foster collaboration internationally. The overall aim of this project is to develop a programme to assess the presence of marine litter in the coastal seagrass habitats of Sri Lanka, characterise the condition of the habitats and the potential impacts of the litter within the broader context of environmental stressors on Sri Lanka's coastal regions. The main output of this contract will be the design of a study to describe seagrass extent, biodiversity and pollution status with respect to marine litter and water quality. The work will also include the collection of some scoping data to prove the do-ability of the techniques and to assess the need for more/alternative equipment or processes. The scoping exercises will require field surveys at locations around the Sri Lanka coast. The main outcome will be the proposal of a project to increase the understanding of the status of the coastal habitats and a greater ability for Sri Lankan coastal managers to take informed decisions on management practices in these locations. To this effect, Cefas requires the successful Tenderer to design, in collaboration with Cefas, a programme of work to survey selected seagrass meadow sites in Sri Lanka to characterise the seagrass habitats and assess the presence of marine litter and potentially other pollutants. The Tenderer will also undertake field work to select sites, test protocols and evaluate the feasibility of the techniques suggested for the survey.