As part of your planning or development application, you may be required to produce information on the biodiversity on your site.
Often the reason for this is to understand what impacts your development will have on the site biodiversity, and how you plan to mitigate or manage these impacts.
The Department of Environment and Energy’s 2011 “State of the Environment” report made a number of key findings;
- Biodiversity has declined since European settlement.
- Most pressures on biodiversity that arise directly or indirectly from human activities appear to still be strong.
- Despite promising investment by all jurisdictions in addressing the main pressures on biodiversity, pressures are not being substantially reduced, nor is the decline in biodiversity being arrested or reversed.
- The major future drivers of change – climate change, population growth, economic development and associated consumption of natural resources – must be managed carefully if a sustainable relationship between biodiversity and human societies is to be achieved.
- Data on long-term trends in biodiversity are limited, making it difficult to interpret the state or trends of major animal and plant groups in most jurisdictions.
Australia can improve its biodiversity management significantly. - Australians cannot afford to see themselves as separate from biodiversity.
It is on this basis that planning controls in biodiverse and sensitive areas need to be carefully considered to minimise the footprint of human intrusion.
Victorian Vegetation Management can collect and compile all of the relevant biodiversity information for your site, and provide you with a report detailing:
- What biodiversity is on your site
- Where it is located, relative to the development
- How the development will impact the biodiversity
- The changes or control measures that can be implemented to manage the risks
Further, our report will enable planners to have a “snapshot” of the health of your property prior to the development.
In some cases, particularly where weeds and pest species have become dominate, this is an opportunity to improve the biodiversity on the site of the development.
Visit our contact page and see how we can help you with your Biodiversity Report.