CIEEM 2022 Awards

In Practice

Sponsored by:

Postgraduate Student Project

Sponsored by:

Louise Henry ACIEEM – University of Leeds – A big house in the country: Assessing the biodiversity and ecosystem service values of trees and their management trade-offs in the Harewood Estate parkland

Louise’s study sought to determine the value of biodiversity and ecosystem service benefits within the Harewood Estate parkland, identify the characteristics that influence these values, and identify trade-offs between them to support management decisions.

Darren Wilson – Edinburgh Napier University – Diet Composition of Eurasian Sparrowhawks Accipiter nisus in Edinburgh, Scotland

This study aimed to determine whether Sparrowhawks (Accipiter nisus) select their prey based on preference or availability through use of prey remains gathered between 2009 and 2012 in Edinburgh, Scotland, and assess how the Sparrowhawk diets may have changed over time in comparison with previous studies.

Corrie Grafton – University of Bristol – Analysis of the factors influencing butterfly diversity and abundance at Snows Farm, Gloucestershire

Due to the ongoing declines in butterfly diversity in the UK, and emerging evidence that land management and its intensity can have a significant impact on butterfly populations, this study sought to identify the impact of time and land management on butterfly assemblages at Snows Farm, a Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust managed site.

University Department/Programme of the Year

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Level 3 Award in Wildlife, Ecology and Conservation – Kingston Maurward College

This programme seeks to balance the importance of theoretical and practical disciplines across themes of ecology, habitat management, legislation, estate skills/machinery use, science communication and wildlife identification.

BSc (Hons), Biological Sciences (Environmental Biology) – Nottingham Trent University

This degree was among the first to be accredited by CIEEM in July 2013. The course delivers a substantial amount of fieldwork, with 49 days of practical work including 28 field days, allowing students to experience entire processes encompassing study design, field-based data collection, laboratory-based sample processing, data analysis and interpretation, and reporting of study findings.

NGO Impact

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CRISEP 2021 – 2025 (Canal & River Invasive Species Eradication Project)

The CRISEP Project 2021 – 2025 is the largest invasive non-native species (INNS) eradication project on UK inland waterways, funded by Severn Trent Water (STW) and delivered by the Canal & River Trust. The project aims to significantly reduce and eradicate four invasive plant species on the Trust’s network: Japanese Knotweed, Giant Hogweed, Floating Pennywort and Water Fern.

Bat Conservation Trust – BatChat Podcast

BatChat is a podcast, run by Bat Conservation Trust, that is designed to increase the profile of bat conservation projects being run all over the country by taking its listeners out into the field to the sites of projects and the people doing the work on the ground. The creation of the podcast has given a platform for project leaders and conservationists to disseminate their results and findings to the wider conservation community in an intimate and engaging way.

Woodland Trust – State of UK Woods and Trees

The State of the UK’s Woods and Trees (SoWT) is a new evidence reporting programme from the Woodland Trust which aims to make vital data on the state of the nation’s woods and trees available and usable to all.

Action 2030

Sponsored by:

Sarah Simons CEnv MCIEEM, Amey Consulting

In her efforts to inspire action on the climate emergency and biodiversity crisis, Sarah has set up and led two groups. Wild about Rogerstone, launched in 2019, is a local community group promoting wildlifefriendly, peat-free and organic gardening, as well as engaging people to appreciate the wildlife in their area. The second, launched in 2020, is an environment group for One of Many, which is a women’s leadership organisation, aiming to connect women who share a vision of a sustainable and just world for all, support women working in the environment sector to foster their strength and resilience using the One of Many leadership tools, and cultivate awareness of environmental issues and opportunities within the wider community.

WSP UK Net Zero / Biodiversity & Natural Capital Campaigns

WSP UK has been an active and committed force in leading action to address the climate emergency and biodiversity crisis. WSP co-founded ‘Pledge to Net Zero’ in 2019, committing environmental services firms to sciencebased carbon targets and public reporting, and have themselves set an ambitious goal of being a carbon-neutral business by 2025 and halving the carbon emissions of their project designs and advice by 2030. WSP’s global business signed up to the Business for Nature Call to Action, calling on governments to adopt policies to reverse nature loss in this decade.

Stantec: Inside SCOPE

In anticipation of the UN Climate Change Conference in Glasgow, COP26, knowing the conference would produce a significant volume of important information for the Stantec group, Stantec’s Marketing Manager Claire Miller and PR Manager Alicia de Haldevang launched the Inside SCOPE programme in November 2021. Inside SCOPE aimed to present and share the discussions, pledges, commitments, and political speeches in a simple format.

Promising Professional

Sponsored by:

Charlie Ward ACIEEM

Charlie began working for Thomson Environmental Consultants in March 2020 as an Assistant Ecologist and is now an Ecological Consultant and Marketing Coordinator. Over this time, her ecological knowledge and technical skills have developed considerably, enabling her to complete roles above her grade including managing ecological projects, leading survey teams, completing health and safety audits, delivering staff training, and managing the company’s digital marketing.

Aoife Joyce

Aoife is a Bat Ecologist with MKO since 2019. When she joined, Aoife showed huge passion and promise, and was quick to take responsibility for organising surveys and coordinating the bat team which has now grown and seen former colleagues return to work with Aoife. Aoife quickly began to liaise with clients and project manage ecological inputs for national scale infrastructure projects.

Member of the Year

Sponsored by

Dr Martina Girvan CEcol MCIEEM

Martina is a Chartered Ecologist with over 25 years’ experience demonstrating the benefits of biodiversity for productivity, stability and resilience of ecosystem-services. Following work with the Scottish Wildlife Trust, her PhD and Post-Doc research into how soil biodiversity underpins ecosystem-services and is affected by land use resulted in four influential papers in international journals, followed by a role as Biodiversity Officer delivering the Greater Manchester BAP, undertaking biodiversity audits, creating management plans and sponsoring enhancement projects.

Professor David Hill CEnv FCIEEM

David is Chairman and founding owner of the Environment Bank which he set up in 2006 to bring the concept of biodiversity offsetting and BNG to the UK, and drive forward knowledge development and technical excellence. The Environment Bank specialises in biodiversity accounting, use of biodiversity metrics, offset brokerage and establishing habitat banks to generate BNG credits.

Kat Stanhope CEnv FCIEEM

Kat became a Fellow of CIEEM in 2021 and has over 20 years of experience in biodiversity and environmental management. Kat is currently seconded from Atkins (member of the SNC-Lavalin Group) to HS2, previously as a Senior Environment Manager and currently as the Ecology Lead for Phase One and Phase 2a.

Philip Colebourn MCIEEM

Philip began his ecology career in 1963, working for the Nature Conservancy. He was previously Hampshire County’s Planning Ecologist, during which he initiated the Hampshire Countryside Heritage programme including the first Ancient Woodland Inventory of over 2,000 woods in Hampshire.

Best Practice – Small Scale Nature Conservation

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Spains Hall Estate – Spains Hall Estate and partners (including Atkins, Environment Agency, Essex and Suffolk Rivers Trust, Essex Wildlife Trust)

The Spains Hall Estate in Essex has been in the same family for 260 years and has been predominantly managed for arable production during that time. However, the Estate is now diversifying its land management, with the core drivers being biodiversity enhancement and increasing the level of ecosystem services. The changes include the implementation of a suite of nature-based solutions that are already having positive impacts both within the handholding and the wider landscape.

Best Practice – Large Scale Nature Conservation

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Solihull Habitat and Nature Improvements Project – Solihull Metropolitan Borough Council (SMBC)

This project was developed and delivered by SMBC’s Conservation of the Historic Environment, Landscape Architecture, Urban Design and Ecology Team. The three year programme of woodland, grassland, wetland and water quality improvements was delivered across publicly accessible green space within Solihull, and was completed in Spring 2020.

Making Space for Nature (Green Infrastructure for Growth & Green Infrastructure for Growth 2) – Cornwall Council and University of Exeter

The project set out to improve the ecological and social value of Cornish urban green spaces including parks, small green spaces, road verges, closed churchyards and cemeteries. It aims to increase biodiversity and improve the cultural, provisioning and regulating ecosystem services provided by sites; including storing carbon and creating a more flood resilient landscape; linking urban green spaces within the wider landscape for wildlife and for active travel; and enhancing people’s engagement with nature on their doorstep.

Farming4Water and Severn Trent Environmental Protection Scheme (STEPS) – Severn Trent Water

Severn Trent’s Farming4Water and Severn Trent Environmental Protection Scheme (STEPS) offer farmers and land managers financial and technical support to invest in solutions to help tackle water pollution and protect and maintain biodiversity.

Best Practice – Small Scale Mitigation

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Bushey Bank Offsite Compensation Site – Environment Bank, Earth Trust and Taylor Wimpey

Taylor Wimpey approached the Environment Bank in 2012 in search of a local landowner from whom they could purchase the conservation credits required to offset a development of 98 residential dwellings with associated open spaces, structural landscaping and access.

Water and Abandoned Metal Mines – Calaminarian grassland mitigation in the North Pennine Moor mines – JBA Consulting, JN Bentley Ltd, the Coal Authority and the Environment Agency

The Coal Authority, with their contractors JBA Consulting and JN Bentley Ltd, working in partnership with the Environment Agency, have undertaken ecological mitigation work at several sites in the Water and Abandoned Metal Mines programme since 2017.

Otterbourne Hill – Ecological Planning and Research (EPR) Ltd

This project involved the construction of a dementia care centre, comprising 64 beds, 20 apartments, access, amenity space, and
landscaping. EPR had previously completed survey work at the site in 2000 and 2009. The 2009 surveys identified the fringes of the main fields as potential reptile habitat and a targeted reptile presence/ likely absence survey confirmed a ‘Good’ population of slow worms (peak count 16), confined to the areas of long grass/ruderals in the field edges.

Best Practice – Large Scale Mitigation

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East West Rail Phase 2 – East West Rail Alliance

The reopening of the Oxford to Cambridge rail route by the East West Rail (EWR) Company will link people with jobs, homes and economic hubs. Work started in 2015, with Phase 2 of the project (EWR2) being delivered by the EWR Alliance (EWRA) – a multi-disciplinary partnership of Network Rail, Atkins, Laing O’Rourke and VolkerRail – and incorporating the installation of 37km of new track connecting Bicester and Bletchley.

Large Scale Reroofing in East Sheffield: Addressing The Impacts on Bats – Ecus Ltd in collaboration with Sheffield City Council

Ecus developed an innovative survey approach and corresponding mitigation design to address impacts of large-scale reroofing on bat populations at the Hackenthorpe estate, east Sheffield, comprising approximately 1,100 properties.

Best Practice – Innovation

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BatCam: a novel trail camera for detecting tree-roosting bats – Gareth Lang, BSG Ecology

Determining whether bats use potential roost features (PRFs) can be extremely challenging. Aerial inspections have demonstrable advantages over emergence/re-entry surveys conducted from the ground, but also significant limitations owing to irregular use of tree roosts by bats, and the rapidity with which evidence of use disappears.

Ash Dieback – Mott MacDonald and Conwy County Borough Council (CCBC)

This project evidences significant advances in the way ash health data is captured. Ash dieback is a fungal disease that is estimated to kill around 80% of ash trees across the UK, having a devastating effect on the environment and biodiversity. The risk is changing constantly, and the scale of conventional ground surveys needed to keep pace represents a major challenge with an estimated capital cost of £15 billion for Great Britain.

Digital Environmental Assessment – Jacobs UK Ltd

When undertaking Environmental Assessments, certain technical activities can traditionally be manual and repetitive. In addition, the reporting process often becomes increasingly complex, with large scale projects spanning months or years and a continuing reliance on soft-copy or static PDF deliverables. Rethinking the approach, Jacobs has developed an innovative and unique Digital Environmental Assessment tool, which delivers transparent, efficient assessments, supported by an interactive digital output in the form of a web-hosted Smart Report.

Improving coastal ecosystem resilience to climate change in Anguilla – Anguilla’s Department of Disaster Management, Anguilla National Trust, Anguilla’s Department of Natural Resources and Environment Systems Ltd

The Anguilla National Trust were awarded UK Darwin Plus funding to implement a project aimed at improving Anguilla’s coastal ecosystem resilience to climate change. Working with UK-based environmental consultancy Environment Systems Ltd, an ecosystem modelling approach was applied to identify and prioritise key coastal habitats for restoration activities that would make the most impact in terms of reducing flood risk to homes and the island’s infrastructure.

Best Practice – Stakeholder Engagement

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South Scotland Golden Eagle Project – South Scotland Golden Eagle Project Board/Southern Uplands Partnership

This national project is reinforcing the small, fragmented population of the rare golden eagle in south Scotland. Beginning in 2018 with the translocation of three juvenile golden eagles, the project is now in year four of six, and has to date translocated 19 young golden eagles (secured from the Scottish Highlands and Islands) to establish a population higher than recorded at any time in the last three centuries.

NATURE Tool – NATURE Tool Partnership led by WSP

The Nature Assessment Tool for Urban and Rural Environments (the NATURE Tool) project was led by WSP and the Ecosystems Knowledge Network in collaboration with Northumbria University and over 30 partner organisations. It was developed between October 2020 and July 2021 as a user-friendly Excel tool to assess natural capital (impact) at the project scale.

Best Practice – Knowledge Sharing

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The Beautiful Burial Ground – Caring for God’s Acre

The Beautiful Burial Ground (BBG) project has been running since early 2018. It aims to put all burial grounds; churchyards, chapel yards and cemeteries, onto the map in terms of biological recording.

Lancashire Peatland Initiative – Lancashire Wildlife Trust

The award-winning Lancashire Peatland Initiative (LPI) is committed to successful and impactful communications activities, targeted towards a wide audience demographic, from professional peers to stakeholders, practitioners, local communities and the general public.

QGIS for Ecologists – QGIS for Ecologists

QGIS for Ecologists was established in November 2019 and is a free online resource that provides a place to learn habitat and species mapping in QGIS. It achieves this through a combination of formal videos (hosted through YouTube) and written tutorials, and by providing an online forum for members to discuss problems and solutions to mapping issues (hosted through Facebook Groups).

Consultancy – Small

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DTA Ecology

DTA Ecology was formed in 2015 and has established an extensive public sector client base across England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. Working with statutory advisers, DTA Ecology is closely involved with the delivery of detailed advice and practical guidance on the interpretation and application of the Habitats Regulations, and operates at the interface between air quality and ecosystems.

Burton Reid Associates

Burton Reid Associates has a simple philosophy, building with nature in mind supports the long-term health and wellbeing of us all. The Burton Reid team work with clients with an aim to deliver high quality green and blue infrastructure to create a healthy natural environment and to provide everyone with access to nature.

Environmental Gain Ltd

Environmental Gain Ltd (Engain) have been involved in a number of key projects in recent years which have enabled them to demonstrate their expertise and commitment to achieving good outcomes.

Johns Associates

Nominated by a client, Johns Associates has provided high quality ecological services to Hart District Council for nearly 15 years. It has supported the delivery of a wide range of habitat restoration, greenblue infrastructure, amenity provision and land use strategies over this period, making a significant difference to ecology and to people in the borough.

Consultancy – Medium

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FiveRivers Environmental Contracting Ltd

FiveRivers Environmental Consulting specialise in the design, delivery and monitoring of ecological and environmental solutions. With over 25 years’ experience of working with nature, their expertise encompasses terrestrial and aquatic habitats with a specific passion for rivers and wetlands.

JBA Consulting Ltd

JBA Consulting is a multi-disciplinary consultancy employing 38 ecologists/environmental managers, across the UK and Ireland. They aim to deliver high quality, sustainable projects that deliver multiple benefits for the environment, people and the economy.

Environment Bank Ltd

The Environment Bank are industry leaders in biodiversity net gain (BNG) and is regularly called upon to deliver niche and bespoke solutions benefitting both biodiversity and their clients.

Ecological Planning and Research (EPR)

Ecological Planning & Research Ltd was founded in 1989 and is firmly rooted in planning, advocating appropriate economic development to provide benefits for nature and people.

Consultancy – Large

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RSK Biocensus

RSK Biocensus is one of the largest ecology and environmental management consultancies in the UK. The team aims not just to facilitate sustainable development with minimal environmental impact but to use their knowledge, passion and influence to effect tangible beneficial change for nature.

Atkins

The expertise within the Atkins business aims to ensure high quality outcomes from their work based on a fundamental understanding of ecology and the ability to critically evaluate scientific evidence. The team prides itself on being able to confidently communicate complex ecological ideas to the range of audiences they encounter, ensuring that advice is understood and the benefits to nature, and people’s connection with nature, is fully realised in project recommendations.

WSP

The WSP team applies technical expertise, collaboration, and innovation to deliver high quality outcomes for major infrastructure projects such as HS2 and East West Rail. New projects in 2021 included undertaking a biodiversity and natural capital baseline assessment for the Ministry of Justice across their estate using novel remote sensing methods and software to achieve wide coverage and cost efficiency.

Mott MacDonald Ltd

The Mott MacDonald Ecology team challenges its clients to drive industry forward through making ambitious ecological, social and economic choices. Major project work includes developing an interactive nature-based solutions map, asking clients ‘Can nature help solve your problems and achieve multiple outcomes?’.