Project aims and objectives

• Adit was approached by a forest management team to provide recording software to measure the impact of periodic harvesting, clearing, and replanting on wildlife habitats



• The forestry conservation officers needed to be able to determine which species were likely to be impacted by any particular planned harvest and replanting project



• It was therefore necessary to record all species that were found in the forest



• To make an assessment of the conservation value of each species and the varied habitats found, based on national and international data, as well as the local status of each species



• To enable forestry conservation officers to assess the timing, extent and methods required by the harvesting process with the (possiby conflicting) demands of the species recorded, while upholding the underlying commercial requirements of the organisation
  
  For example: Felling during the nesting period would have a very serious effect on the species, whereas postponing felling until the young birds have fledged, would be relatively straightforward.



• To be able to provide briefing reports to the harvesting operators regarding specific constraints

The client's existing system

Prior to the use of AditSite, data had been held in an obsolete biological recording system with a proprietary file format.

Software Development

• AditSite was in its early development stages when we were approached by the forest management team with their specification, and therefore the developing needs of the conservation officers have helped shape many of the early features in AditSite



• The data in the client's original recording system, relevant to woodland species conservation, was transferred by the Adit team into AditSite for seamless recording adn analysis



• AditSite was developed so that all records could be fed into the organisation's main GIS with constraints and other information displayed as a themed layer



• AditSite was configured to generate suitable reports and maps of the areas concerned, with the extent and nature of each constraint, to be utilised to communicate with the harvesting operators



• As an additional benefit of this project, the records collected by the conservation officers contributed a body of knowledge on local rarities useful to a wider audience than just forest management