The requirement for developers to implement minimum Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG) standards became law on 12 February, and having already worked on projects this week's Horticulture Week Podcast guest already has considerable experience in the field.

Although Alexandra Steed was speaking from Vancouver for the podcast recording, her landscape practice is based in London and South East England. Highlights include developing green and blue landscape infrastructure strategies for South Essex Estuary Park and masterplanning a 25% increase of footprint of Canterbury.

The latter is a project that reflects the aims and concerns of BNG:

"It's really looking at how we can improve the landscape while we're bringing about new development. So you know the two can happen hand in hand.

Development doesn't necessarily have to mean that a landscape is harmed in any way or brings about negative consequences. In fact, if we plan in a landscape-led sort of way, then we can actually bring benefits to that landscape."

Now that BNG is here, with the hope it will help reverse a rapid decline in biodiversity in UK landscapes, Alexandra nevertheless has a number of concerns:

"I would say my biggest concern is that biodiversity net gain is being considered on a plot by plot basis. So rather than looking at a landscape in its kind of regional capacity, or you know, at a watershed level, where all of its natural processes and systems are taken into account - instead, we're dividing it up and trying to apply improvements on a plot by plot and piecemeal basis. And nature just doesn't work that way...so right from the start, that brings about a lot of problems"

She explains her fears that measures taken could become a 'box-ticking' exercise, potentially "a homogenisation of habitats that are easy to deliver" and improvements restricted to the plot boundary, leading to disconnected islands of green space and "not getting the benefits of enriching the larger landscape".

Alexandra is also concerned there will be a lack of governance and ongoing management and stewardship exacerbated by a lack of funding for in-house expertise within local authorities.

More broadly, Alexandra is passionate about interconnectedness and people's connection with nature as a necessary means to heal the planet. Her book, "Portrait to Landscape: A Landscape Strategy to Reframe Our Future" explores the role policy makers, developers, landscapers through to individual citizens.

As she says, it is "about how we deal with our landscapes because it expresses everything that we as humans believe about nature and our relationship to nature.

So it's not just important for those of us working in the landscape industries, it's important for everybody to understand this and to understand the power held there and the power for rehabilitation within our landscapes."

Presenter: HortWeek senior reporter: Rachael Forsyth

Producer: HortWeek digital content manager Christina Taylor

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