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17 A Proposed Structure for the CMS

17.1 Science provider suggestions

A small group of professionals could maintain the CMS, overseen by a manager reporting to a Steering Committee. Other national environmental monitoring requirements could be managed under the same umbrella to ensure the most efficient use of resources. Contracted staff, including students and recently qualified scientists, would be part of the field staff employed as required for field work. Training a new generation of scientists to be involved in the monitoring system would be one requirement of the management of the CMS.

The CMS structure would be charged with:

  • defining the overall work programme

  • organising the field work including the sub-contracted staff

  • managing data storage and analysis

  • preparing reports and liaising with public and stakeholders.

  • preparing reports and liaising with public and stakeholders.

  • managing data storage and analysis

  • preparing reports and liaising with public and stakeholders.

  • preparing reports and liaising with public and stakeholders.

17.2 Steering committee proposal

The Steering Committee in July 2001 sought a joint Year 1 implementation proposal from the two CRIs that had developed it thus far.  In this request the Steering Committee stated that: “The funding profile for the CMS work is constrained in 2001/02 but improves in the following two years.  The funding is sufficient to begin the CMS fieldwork, data collection, data entry, archiving field records and some analysis.

Funding has also been obtained for the next New Zealand Land Cover Database project (NZLCDB#2), an essential adjunct to the CMS. This will commence with image acquisition over the coming 2001/02 summer months.”

The CMS Steering Committee defined their proposal for year 1 of the CMS implementation as follows:

  • It should contain an implementation plan on how the work described in the manuals (as prepared under Task A3 of the 2000/01 work plan) can proceed in Year 1 with a target ‘start date’ for the fieldwork to begin in the week following Labour Day 2001;

  • It contains details on how the field work in Year 1 can be staffed and controlled in accordance with all relevant labour legislation, safety, health and land owners/managers access requirements.  This is also to contain details on training for the teams;

  • It describes how the data collected in Year 1 are to be securely stored and ‘future-proofed,

  • It describes how the soils data obtained during the Year 1 fieldwork programme are to be processed, stored and analysed;

  • It describes how the vegetation data and specimens obtained during the Year 1 fieldwork programme are to processed, stored and analysed;

  • It required a fully costed proposal for carrying out the above, showing salary costs, the different operating costs, and overheads.  Staff costs must be appropriate to the skill levels for the tasks and should make the contractual status of any employees quite clear.  The future scientific and other benefits Landcare Research and Forest Research from satisfactorily implementing the data collection and initial analysis component in the Year 1 proposal should be factored into the costings.  Any subsidisation from related work already funded by the taxpayer should be identified and shown explicitly.  Normal CRI charging overheads will need to be discounted to achieve the Year 1 funding constraints.

Further operational research work is to be considered separately for funding.

The development of a new database to hold, analyse and report the CMS data (database analysis requirements and database networking options) will be separately considered for funding in 2002/03.

In preparing the implementation plan, the following assumptions are to be made:

  • the grid size will be 8 km (this is expected to require 1400 permanent field plots of which 280 are to be established in Year 1);

  • the grid will cover the whole of New Zealand’s sovereign land territory except for the Ross Dependency (in general this means the North and South Islands, Stewart Island, the Chatham Islands, and other off-shore islands such as the Auckland Islands, the Kermadecs, etc.);

  • the entire grid will be actioned over a 5-year period in the first survey round (Round 1).  Subsequent to this it may be actioned over a 10-year period;

  • field work in 2001/02 will be restricted to the North and South Islands and minor off-shore islands coming within the territorial authorities’ boundaries.  Stewart Island and the Chatham Islands and the other remote off-shore islands will be specifically excluded from field work in 2001/02;

  • for cost and operational efficiencies some clustering of the permanent plots to be surveyed in 2001/02 is desirable.  This should take into account that several parts of the North and South Islands are poorly represented in the NVS databank (in terms of previously established permanent plots) and that there should be some balance between establishing new plots and using previously established plots within NVS which meet the inclusion criteria in terms of the national 8 km grid;

  • formal permission from land owners/managers or their agents will be required before entering any land for the field work.  This will include compliance with any protocols they may wish to apply, including any required under relevant legislation.  In the event of permission being denied, the intended plot at the grid point will not be established in Year 1;

  • a copy of all data obtained from any fieldwork on their property is to be available on request by the land owners/managers or their agents;

  • ownership of all data collected during Year 1 of the CMS will be vested with MfE, on behalf of the Crown.  MfE will normally place it within the public domain after a reasonable period of time and with the consent of the land owners/managers or their agents;

  • the field work season will be from the week following Labour Day 2001 (Labour Day 2001 is Monday 22 October 2001) and is expected to continue, in normal circumstances, until Easter of 2002 (Good Friday 2002 is 29 March 2002).  This is a field week season of approximately 21 weeks with allowances made for the Christmas–New Year break.  Subject to progress and favourable weather it may continue beyond this to 30 April 2002;

  • capacity for up to 12 permanent staff from the CMS Steering Committee parent departments (DOC, MAF and MfE) should be factored into the planning.  These staff may be available to be trained and be used for some periods of time in the field work teams from 1 February 2002 until the close of the 2001/2002 field work season.  Discussions within the parent departments are required before this commitment can confirmed;

  • soil sampling in the forest and scrublands plots will be carried out concurrently with the vegetation measurements;

  • soil sampling will be to at least a depth of 0.3 metres at each forest and scrublands plot;

  • four (4) paired sites for the repeated sampling through time of soil carbon changes are to be established in the first year and are to be located, where they meet the soils stratification schema, on the national 8 km grid system;

  • ten percent (10%) of the indigenous forest and scrublands permanent plots are to be revisited during the Year 1 field work season for quality control and quality assurance purposes.  The results of these revisits are to be detailed in the audit material made available to the Steering Committee.


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