Citation policy
A citation on this site is a registered statement that one named source supports one specific claim. Anything broader is not a citation, it is decoration.
Published by the Land Clearing Authority editorial team · Last revised 2026-07-29 · Editorial policy · Corrections
A link to a government website is not a citation. It is a link. What makes it a citation is a recorded statement that this named source supports this specific claim, and that the claim is inside what the source actually says.
That is enforced rather than intended. Every source on this site is registered with an explicit list of the claims it may support and an explicit list of the pages that cite it. Attempting to cite a source for a claim outside its registered scope throws at build time. A source that lists a page which does not actually cite it also throws. The cross-check runs in both directions because drift happens in both directions.
What a registered source carries
- What it is — the publishing authority, and what kind of body it is.
- What it supports — the specific claims it is registered for. Not a topic; a claim.
- Where it is used — the routes that cite it, cross-checked against those pages.
- Verification status — whether the reference has been confirmed against the live document, and when.
- Retrieval date — when the source was last looked at.
Verification status, stated plainly
The current status of the registry, read from the registry itself rather than described from memory:
| Status | Sources | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| unverified | 55 | Registered from an authority trusted to be current, and not re-read against the live document this cycle. Labelled that way rather than presented as checked. |
The word "unverified" is doing real work there. It would have been trivial to omit the status field and let every reference look equally solid. Publishing the status is the difference between a citation and a decoration.
What is never cited
- Anything commercial as an authority on fact. A contractor's marketing page is not a source for what something costs or how a method performs.
- Aggregators and content farms. If a claim can only be traced to a site that collected it from somewhere else, the claim is not used.
- This platform, for its own factual claims. Self-citation to manufacture the appearance of support is circular, and it is one of the easier ways to look authoritative while saying nothing.
- Any figure whose origin cannot be named. That includes statistics that circulate widely in the trade without a traceable source.
Why no research figures are cited yet
This platform publishes its own research instruments — the questions, the method, the minimum sample size — before collecting anything. Every dataset currently sits at zero observations, and the dataset pages say so rather than showing an illustrative number.
The registry throws if any dataset in source control carries an observation, which prevents a future edit from seeding plausible-looking rows. When real observations exist, they will be published with their sample size and their limitations attached.
Questions about sources
Why are so many sources marked unverified?
Because the environment the site is built in cannot reach those hosts to re-confirm each document, and labelling them verified anyway would be the exact failure this policy exists to prevent. The authority and the claim scope are recorded; the confirmation step is outstanding and visible.
Why does this site not cite cost data?
Because no cost data has been collected, and the figures that circulate in this trade generally cannot be traced to a method. The cost pages explain the drivers and refuse to publish a number, which is more useful than an average that does not describe your site.
Can I suggest a source?
Yes, through the corrections process. A useful suggestion names the authority, the specific claim it would support, and the document. That is the same information the registry requires.
What happens if a cited document moves?
It becomes a correction. The reference is updated in place and the change is recorded in the revision log with its date, so the page keeps its history rather than quietly becoming a different page.
Work out the scope before you ask for prices
Answer the five questions every quote depends on — what is growing, where the material goes, how deep removal has to reach, whether equipment can get in, and what the land is for afterwards. Then send one properly described project to the right kind of contractor.
Nothing on this site is a recommendation of a specific company. The guidance describes categories of work and the questions worth asking. If you decide to request quotes, the introduction is free to you, contractors may pay to receive it, and you are under no obligation to hire anyone.