Adelaide Arb Consultants

Shane Selway is the Director and Senior Consulting Arborist here, holding an MSc in Arboriculture and Urban Forestry, a Graduate Certificate in Arboriculture, a Diploma of Arboriculture and ISA Certified Arborist registration AU0270A, with more than 15 years in the industry. He established Adelaide Arb Consultants in 2014, and we've provided arboricultural consulting across Adelaide and South Australia ever since, for local councils, schools, developers and private clients.

Michael Palamountain works alongside him as a Senior Consulting Arborist, with a Bachelor of Science, a Diploma of Horticulture in Arboriculture and ISA certification AU007A, and Dr Tate Hancox brings a Diploma of Arboriculture, a Bachelor of Science (Advanced) in botany and soil science, and a Doctor of Philosophy in plant science. Between us we hold the Tree Risk Assessment Qualification and Quantified Tree Risk Assessment, senior first aid and DCSI mandatory reporting, rail safe awareness, a white card, workzone traffic management, and ETSA identification and safe working practices near live electrical conductors.

After the Sampson Flat, Cudlee Creek and Kangaroo Island fires we project managed the data mapping of the fire scar in TreePlotter for Adelaide Hills Council and the Department of Environment and Water, and the bushfire debris clean up for Green Industries SA. That is the shape of what we do: the assessing, the mapping and the planning that has to happen before anyone touches a tree.

On a single tree it starts with an on-site consultation. We assess health, structure and condition, and work through the biotic and abiotic factors behind whatever you're looking at: pathogens, herbicide impact, soil-related disorders. Out of that comes a tree risk assessment and arboricultural management advice you can make a decision on, whether the question is longevity, an infection you can't identify, or whether the tree stays at all.

Where a subdivision, a road or a large infrastructure build runs up against established trees, we prepare the tree protection planning that keeps them standing through construction, with management design drawings and encroachment allowances set out in AutoCad. TerraSync and GPS Pathfinder Pro handle the GIS mapping, and safety data logging gives an owner a running record of a whole tree population instead of a snapshot of one specimen.

We don't carry out the pruning or the removals ourselves, so the advice you get has no conflict of interest sitting behind it, and where work does need doing we can give you the details of recognised and trained contracting arboricultural companies. The office is at Kent Town, but the consultation happens where the tree is. Email or ring with the address and what you're trying to work out, whether that's one tree on a boundary, a street population that needs a management plan, or a development application that has stalled on an arboricultural question, and we'll arrange a time to come and look at it.