Paul's consultancy

Botanical Investigations

Paul Smith established Botanical Investigations on 1st June 2007 as an independent, specialist consultancy .

 

He is a graduate botanist (BSc, PhD), with over 30 years' experience as an ecological consultant, writer and lecturer.  Paul is also a Senior Associate Teacher with the University of Bristol, involved in training undergraduate and postgraduate students in ecology in the UK and overseas. He speaks English and Spanish.

 

Paul provides scientific advice on issues relating to plants and their ecology including flowering plants, ferns, bryophytes (mosses and liverworts), lichens, fungi and charophytes (stoneworts). He has been licensed by Natural England to sample river jelly lichen (Collema dichotomum), a Wildlife and Countryside Act (1981) Schedule 8 species, and Killarney fern (Vandenboschia speciosa), a European protected plant species.

Paul's consultancy has a scientific and educational ethic and he seeks to provide his clients with objective guidance on issues relating to development, land management and conservation in a time of global environmental change. He publishes aspects of his work either alone or with collaborators. A list publications is provided on this web site, including his book: Indicator Plants: Using Plants to Evaluate the Environment. 


Images anticlockwise from top: Echium wildpretii, Targionia hypophylla, Toninia toepferi, Lobaria virens  

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Paul's professional qualifications and accreditation


Paul  is formally trained in the biology of plants and fung. He graduated with a first class honours degree in botany from the University of Bristol in 1981. Winner of a SERC quota award, he went on to gain a PhD in vascular plant systematics.  He is a full member of the Chartered Institue of Ecology and Environmental Management and a Chartered Environmentalist.


Following research on economically important parasitic weeds at University College London, he became an ecological consultant in 1989, providing advice on the mitigation of civil engineering projects. He has worked for the public, private and NGO sectors snd produced SSSI condition assessments for Natural England.


Paul has studied the flora of the UK for over 40 years, covering sites from the Lizard Peninsula in Cornwall to the Keen of Hamar in north Shetland. Currently based in the Cotswolds, he now carries out botanical work throughout the Country and teaches ecological impact assessment, botany and wildlife conservation issues for the University of Bristol. With a practical, knowledge of Spanish, he also teaches subtropical botany in the Canary Islands (Tenerife).


Images from left: Fissidens polyphyllus, Hymenophyllum tunbrigense, Bunodophoron melanocarpum