Overview

Sage restoration ecologists, botanists, arborists, and landscape crews have expertise in habitat restoration planning, design, vegetation installation, maintenance and performance monitoring. Sage has developed, designed, and implemented native habitat restoration and mitigation plans for upland, wetland, and riparian habitat areas that are uniquely tailored to support project-specific mitigation objectives and encourage use by sensitive wildlife.

Restoration Services

• Sage has a highly regarded and regionally recognized ecosystem restoration team with a successful approach to ecosystem restoration. This includes a full range of ecological restoration services, from preparing a work plan to evaluating reference sites, developing preliminary and final design plans, preparing cost estimates, contract plant growing, plant salvage, grading and contouring, irrigation supporting plant establishment, plant and seed installation, weed maintenance, erosion control, and success monitoring.
• Sage negotiates practical restoration mitigation ratios with various regulatory agencies. Appropriate mitigation ratios are calculated by assessing pre restoration conditions onsite and estimating post-restoration conditions using functional evaluation methods that utilize the following criteria: spatial diversity and coverage of habitats, structural diversity of habitats, contiguity of habitats, percent cover of invasive vegetation, hydrology, topographic complexity, characteristics of flood-prone area, and biogeochemical processing. In addition, Sage can assist the project in establishing, maintaining, or acquiring parcels in mitigation banks.

Habitat Evaluation and Studies

• Sage supports the project in negotiating mitigation requirements and permit conditions set forth by permitting agencies, by preparing sound restoration plans required by resource agencies according to permit conditions, and through successful implementation and monitoring of restoration measures.
• Sage restoration plans include documentation of the project history, description of agency permits, evaluation of the project site, description of site preparation methods, irrigation plans, container plant and seed lists and their methods of installation, maintenance and monitoring procedures, performance criteria for agency approval, and performance monitoring and reporting procedures.
• Sage prepares reports that fulfill all conditions of USACE Section 404 of the Clean Water Act permits, streambed alteration agreements, biological opinions, and other similar agency documents that may provide conditions for mitigation.

Habitat Management Plans

• Sage has expertise with Habitat Management Plan preparation and implementation. Sage’s restoration ecologists are experienced with prescribing economical and successful methods of revegetation.
• Sage has a proven success record in plant installation methodologies, selection of seed material, setting up onsite nurseries, identifying plant health issues and working amid and supervising restoration planting, landscaping, and maintenance crews.
• In addition, Sage’s use adaptive management and expansive knowledge in plant and soil science to solve restoration challenges through practical and economic means.