Environmental specialists on hand for expert planning


Discovering SA - Henry Greyling

HilLand Associates is a multi-disciplinary consultancy specialising in environmental planning and management.
The consultancy's main focus is on socio-economic impact assessment, GIS, site evaluation, vegetation and control and aims to achieve an integral balance between sustained development and the maintenance of environmental integrity. Its planning is a bottom up approach, with the biophysical environment dictating scale and the rational use of resources.

It is headed up by Cathy Avierinos, who started the company 10 years ago, and Gavin Hellström, who like Cathy graduated from Rhodes University specialising in Environmental Impact Assessment. Cathy has developed specialist techniques in Rehabilitation, Environmental Control and Monitoring of large developments and hopes that her research will ultimately culminate with a PhD. Gavin was the Principle Nature Conservation Scientist with Cape Nature Conservation until he joined Cathy as a partner in 1998 to assist with the rapidly growing need in spatial and environmental planning The consultancy adheres to Integrated Environmental Management (IEM) principles from project planning, scoping, and specialist studies, through to project management and environmental control and monitoring. Services ranges from Aerial Photographic Interpretation to Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) GIS and Computer Mapping, Project Facilitation and public participation and Property Development Feasability Assessment.