The recent and ongoing bushfires across Australia have caused devastation to our natural environment and cultural heritage values. The entire team at Niche is sincerely grateful to our emergency services, firefighting agencies, and volunteers. It is heart-warming to see the Australian spirit bringing people together to provide support to communities and wildlife affected by the…
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Niche was engaged by Tilt Renewables to provide a preliminary offset assessment and offset strategy for the Liverpool Range Wind Farm and Transmission Line project in the Upper Hunter Valley, NSW. Our team of Accredited BAM Assessors undertook investigations to determine the biodiversity values of ten parcels of land, and to assess their potential for…
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Our North Coast NSW team provided both heritage management and ecological services during approval and compliance stages of this project. This included an Aboriginal cultural heritage assessment; flora and fauna assessment; vegetation management plan; fauna management plan; nest box installation and monitoring; clearing surveys – and a Koala Habitat Management Plan (KHMP). The KHMP led…
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Sincere thanks to our clients, business partners and supporters for a wonderful tenth working year in 2019! We’ll be taking a short break from Tuesday 24 to Friday 27 December and will be back to work on Monday 30 December. We wish you a safe and enjoyable Christmas break and look forward to working with you in…
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Sarah McGuinness is a heritage consultant based at our Wollongong office. For more than 10 years she has been providing Aboriginal and historical archaeology advice to support to clients across New South Wales, Victoria, Tasmania and Western Australia. Sarah has worked extensively within the mining and linear infrastructure sectors and is highly skilled in a…
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Niche’s multidisciplinary team has the experience and expertise to deliver high quality, specialist services to support road infrastructure projects across NSW. Our flagship projects in this sector include: OH2K and F2E: Lead environmental consultant M1 Pacific Highway Motorway Productivity Package: Ecology, Aboriginal and historical heritage Hunter Expressway Environmental Advice: Project ecologist throughout project planning, design…
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“I am very happy to announce that we’ve made the decision to become a carbon neutral organisation in line with Climate Active, the Australian federal government’s standard for carbon neutrality,” said Niche director Dr Rhidian Harrington. “We are doing this to minimise the impacts of our operations on the environment and also to be prepared for a future…
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Niche was engaged by Sydney Trains to prepare a five-year weed management plan to deal with exotic flora across the entire network. Botanist Dr Cairo Forrest developed an innovative method for recording weeds across the rail network using handheld GPS devices, while riding trains at pace. Read our case study to find out more… Excellence…
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We’ve been working with Queensland Rail on different aspects of the Shorncliffe station restoration project since 2016. When QR discovered an assemblage of artefacts in the subfloor space they asked us to assist them in managing this discovery. To learn more, read our case study about the project – and the advantages Dr Xavier Carah…
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South32 has developed a holistic land management program titled ‘Intelligent Land Management’ or ILM in order to transform South32 landholdings, which are otherwise unused, into areas that increase climate resilience and generate shared financial, social and environmental value. Niche has recently completed the ILM Assessment for South32’s Illawarra Metallurgical Coal (IMC) operations, building on our…
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On 29 October 2019, the Australian government commenced a ten-yearly review of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC Act) – the centrepiece of our national environmental legislation. Federal Environment Minister, Sussan Ley, when announcing the review emphasised the government’s goal was to deliver greater certainty to business groups, farmers and environment organisations.…
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Niche recently co-hosted a breakfast seminar in Sydney with law firm Clayton Utz entitled Innovative strategies for biodiversity offsets in NSW. More than thirty project directors, environmental managers and legal advisers attended the seminar, with representatives from the land development, mining and renewable energy sectors, as well as state government road and water infrastructure agencies.…
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