Put nature on every planner's desk: the case for biodiversity in thousands of daily decisions

Protected parks matter, but most of nature's fate is decided elsewhere — in thousands of routine planning approvals across farms, suburbs, ports and mines. Writing in Nature Reviews Biodiversity, Associate Professor Grantham of UNSW and 20 international co-authors argue that biodiversity should be embedded in all of those decisions, not confined to reserves. Australia, they note, already has the tools — species mapping, marine zoning, bioregional planning — but uses them inconsistently; a coordinated spatial-planning approach could deliver economic benefits with far less environmental harm. It is a constructive brief: the maps exist, the science exists — what is being asked for is follow-through.

SDG 15 · Life on land — Mechanism: policy reform