Arbor Australis Consulting

When a tree ends up in a legal argument, somebody has to stand up and defend the findings. That is work Arbor Australis Consulting has taken on since 2001, and our expert witness service provides rigorous, defensible testimony for legal and council proceedings. It is also the discipline that shapes everything else we produce, because a report written to survive cross-examination is simply a better report than one written to be filed.

Our consultants hold AQF Level 5 and Level 8 arboricultural qualifications and bring more than eighty years of combined experience to a brief. Jeremy Young leads the practice as principal consultant, alongside senior consultant Jon Belsham and a team of consultants, a CAD drafter and support staff, all working from Brisbane and the Sunshine Coast. Precision, integrity and sustainability are the three words we hold ourselves to, and we pair biological science with a structural understanding of trees so the advice is accurate rather than merely confident.

Most briefs begin with an arborist report prepared to Australian Standards including AS 4373 and AS 4970, written to support a council development application and to stand up when it is questioned. Behind those reports sits tree survey and data collection for large-scale audits, complete with site plans, tree numbering and valuation, so a decision about one tree can be made in the context of the whole site rather than in isolation.

Where construction is proposed, our arboricultural impact assessments weigh up how the works, the machinery and the methods will affect the existing trees, and which of them can realistically be retained. Risk assessments quantify the likelihood and the consequence of a tree failing using tested methods, and diagnostic assessment uses technology to see inside a trunk and reveal the decay a visual inspection would miss.

Once a project is approved, our project arborist service puts a consultant on site at agreed checkpoints, making sure the trees marked for retention are actually protected while the build is happening. For sites that need a long view rather than a single decision, arboricultural management plans set out how a whole tree population should be maintained over time, with tailored golf course and school versions written for those settings, and habitat assessments identify where artificial hollows can be installed to accelerate natural ageing and support local wildlife.

We work across Brisbane, the Sunshine Coast, Noosa, the Gold Coast, Ipswich, Toowoomba, the Scenic Rim, Moreton Bay, Logan and the Redlands. Get in touch between Monday and Friday and tell us what the tree question is.