Collect once - and use thousands of times!
A wealth of biological records are collected by environmental consultants and ecological professionals everyday as part of your day-to-day work. By sharing back to your local LERC you are both supporting the CIEEM accreditation duty ‘to make scientific data available to others’, and supporting the wider profession by ensuring that quality information is there for accurate, informed, future decision making and research.
“It is expected that following the completion of surveys, all relevant biodiversity data obtained will be submitted to the relevant LERCs and other groups as appropriate, unless the client has expressly refused permission for this. A statement to this effect should be included in the consultants’ Terms and Conditions. Data can be submitted direct to the LERC. Note that where a protected species licence is required, submission of such data by the stated deadline is a requirement of the licence” Chartered Institute for Ecology and Environmental Management (2020)."
Ideally for Northamptonshire we prefer you come direct, so we can follow up as needed for validation – meaning accurate records are not lost and all submissions can be captured (not yet possible via NBN Consultants' Portal). We encourage submission of ALL species records, every biological record adds depth and accuracy to the information we are able to provide. Please submit all species recorded, common and rare, alongside your reporting of consultation records. At a minimum we need to know the 4-w’s – these elements are vital components of any biological records.
what species were found on your site survey
where they were recorded (site name and 6 or 8 figure grid reference preferred)
when the survey happened (date)
who surveyed, please remember to include your name as the recorder
Any comments on behaviour, stage, associated species, sex and abundance are also really helpful detail to supply. If records are from translocation, please submit a record for each location. Completed a habitat assessment? This dated condition assessment information, and your on the ground knowledge of habitat boundaries, is a vital resource to aid landscape scale management for conservation and important to submit.
However, you collect your data you are welcome to contact us and work with the team on your submission. We aim to make the process easy and understand that we need to work with you to aid this data flow. Our excel template can be used for submission, pre-formatted and with guidance for swift processing. Original reports, lists in other formats (Recorder/MapMate etc.), or even scanned notes are also fine - to save time, please ensure they are submitted with the four w’s and accurate location detail as we will need this to create the records. We recognise and value the consultancies who take the time to submit their records and we are keen work with you to expand this good practice.