Services

With over a quarter of a century of professional experience in the ecological consulting field, we have the knowledge and expertise to successfully guide your project through the planning and permit processes required by your site's ecology. Explore the range of services we offer below, and click on the images in our Gallery page to get snapshots of our work and our services.

Native vegetation assessment and offset

Ecocentric's principal ecological consultant, Peter Gannon, is a DEECA-accredited native vegetation assessor, approved to complete Vegetation Quality Assessments in accordance with Section 52.17 of the Planning Scheme and following methodology detailed in Native vegetation: sustaining a living landscape. Vegetation Quality Assessment manual - guidelines for applying the habitat hectares scoring method. Ecocentric can assess and map your site, and then utilise results to help guide your project application through the three-step 'avoid, minimise, offset' approach required by the Victorian Guidelines for the removal, destruction or lopping of native vegetation. We help clients identify what losses can be avoided and then what losses can be minimised, before quantifying a project's remnant offset requirements. As a Native Vegetation Credit Register listed broker and site assessor, Ecocentric can then also facilitate the securing of appropriate offsets, either through the establishment of a first-party offset site or the sourcing of third-party offsets, plus the brokering of these offsets when appropriate.

Conservation management planning

Ecocentric has an extensive history of developing conservation management plans for the long-term conservation and improvement of habitat for threatened flora, fauna, and vegetation communities. Our management plans have provided for the protection and enhancement of terrestrial (grassland, woodland and forest) and aquatic (wetland and waterway) environments, and also for the construction and establishment of habitat and habitat connectivity for threatened species, including aquatic habitat values for threatened fish and amphibian species, the establishment of >3,000 hectares of significant habitat for biodiversity offset credit generation, and biolink planning.

GIS mapping

All Ecocentric staff are proficient in utilising QGIS and ArcGIS, collecting GPS field data, identifying threatened flora and fauna species records from public databases, accessing modelled habitat and vegetation significance mapping layers from public state and federal government agency sites such as LASSI, NatureKit and Victorian planning provisions zoning and overlays, incorporating high resolution aerial photography from sources such as NearMap and MetroMap, and incorporating public WMS (streaming) sources such as ESRI and Google.

Photo credit: Aaron Jenkin, Aquatica Environmental

Threatened species assessment,
targeted survey and offset

Specific protections may apply for flora and fauna species listed as threatened under the Commonwealth's Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC Act) and/or Victoria's Flora and Fauna Guarantee Act 1988 (FFG Act). Ecocentric can assess habitat on your site for the likelihood of threatened species presence, conduct targeted surveys where required in accordance with relevant survey guidelines, make recommendations to firstly avoid or secondly mitigate a project's impacts on threatened species, assess whether a project is likely to have a significant impact upon a Matter of National Environmental Significance, develop EPBC referrals for DCCEEW assessment of projects, develop EPBC Offset Management Plans, and finally assist a project to meet the conditions of an EPBC Act approval, including sourcing any biodiversity offsets required that may be required.

Expert witness testimony and panel evidence

Ecocentric's principal ecological consultant, Peter Gannon, is experienced in developing expert witness statements for both VCAT and the Supreme Court of Victoria, and has additionally been called upon to testify at VCAT. He has provided advice on policy development for both federal and state government statutory bodies, and on Planning Scheme amendments for local government. He has also attended local government chamber meetings and EPA public hearings as an expert witness.

Forestry auditing

Ecocentric is also an experienced forestry auditor, having conducted audits on both native and plantation timber harvesting programs against the Code of Practice for Timber Production 2014 on behalf of the EPA, DEECA and local government, and against the Forest Management standard for Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certification of local timber harvesting companies.