Designations and Constraints

Ecological constraints are frequently discovered late, when a project is committed and options are gone. The cheapest ecology work is the survey done before the design is fixed.

What may apply

• Designated sites — international, national and local designations protecting habitats and species. Designations near a site can constrain it as much as designations on it, through impacts on air, water, noise and lighting.
• Protected species — many jurisdictions protect specific species and their resting places absolutely, with offences committed by disturbance as well as by harm. Typical examples include bats, nesting birds, badgers, reptiles, amphibians and certain invertebrates and plants.
• Priority habitats — ancient woodland, species-rich grassland, heathland, wetlands, hedgerows and veteran trees, some effectively irreplaceable.
• Planning conditions from earlier permissions, which frequently carry ecological obligations that outlive the people who agreed them.
• Watercourses and their corridors, with their own protections and consents.

Nesting birds

In many jurisdictions it is an offence to damage or destroy an active nest. This makes vegetation clearance a seasonal constraint, and a project that must clear vegetation in the breeding season needs a pre-clearance check by an ecologist rather than an assumption. It is one of the most common causes of enforcement action against otherwise well-run projects.