Appendix 4 - Flora Survey & Permit

2.2          Survey methodology
2.2.1        Clearing impact area
Clearing within a ‘High risk area’ requires a protected plant flora survey to be undertaken within the
clearing impact area. A clearing impact area is defined under section 249 of the regulation as ‘the area
to be cleared to the extent it is within a high risk area, together with a buffer zone – an additional area
100 m in width around the development footprint’.
As shown in Figure 1, the ‘clearing impact area’ includes a number of lots:

ƒ Lot 500 on CP885200 (adjacent lot, access granted by landholder) Davis Road Reserve (location of
  proposed NBN facility)

ƒ Lot 5 on RP894929 (adjacent lot, access granted by landholder)
ƒ Lot 4 on SP176875 (adjacent lot, access granted by landholder)
The clearing is only proposed to occur within the road reserve; however the above lots were included
in the flora survey to comply with the required clearing impact area (ie 100 m buffer around area to be
cleared).

2.2.2        Timed meander method
As the timed meander method is the preferred approach within the Flora Survey Guidelines, this
method was adopted to identify EVNT species within the clearing impact area. The protected plant
flora survey was conducted on 23 March 2015 by suitably qualified ecologists (ie Cassandra Arkinstall
and Chelsea Karena) (refer Section 2.3).
During field surveys it was determined that two habitat types existed within the clearing impact area
including the following:

ƒ Highly disturbed areas (including road reserve, access tracks, and other previously disturbed
  areas), approximately 1.37 ha

ƒ Remnant RE 12.9-10.17, approximately 2.59 ha
These two habitat types are shown in Figure 5, and as per the Flora Survey Guidelines timed
meanders were conducted in each habitat type (one meanders per type). Descriptions of these habitat
types are provided in Section 3.1.

2.2.3        Survey timing
The protected plant flora survey was conducted prior to submission of the proposed Development
Application to ensure that the locations of any EVNT flora species present within the clearing impact
area were recorded and managed appropriately.
The survey timing in March was suitable to ensure that EVNT species, if present, could be identified at
the time of the survey. Whilst there were constraints on the timing of this survey for the proposed
development construction timeframes, it is considered that the survey timing was sufficient to
determine the presence of the protected plants found in the database searches, with species either
being in flower or fruit lifecycles or having distinctive leaves and habitat for targeted searches.

2.2.4        Permits to conduct works
The protected plant flora survey was conducted in accordance with Aurecon’s Scientific Purposes
Permit (WISP14453114).




                                                  Project 226420 File Davis Road Protected Plant Survey Report_CK 29 April 2015 Revision 0 Page 5