Biodiversity under pressure: In search of sustainable planning strategies

Land use change in and around urban areas is a major driver of biodiversity loss. Such processes have mostly been studied in large cities, and to a much lesser extent in towns and villages. There is an urgent need for nature positive planning principles that recognize the planetary boundaries and are anchored among decision‐makers. We mapped land cover transitions from aerial photos of eight Norwegian towns and villages and their immediate surroundings over three decades. In two questionnaire surveys that covered the same study area and period, we mapped the attitudes of decision‐makers towards environmental problems and planning measures. We found a substantial increase in built‐up areas at the expense of natural and agricultural areas. During the same period, we found increased support among decision‐makers for environmentally friendly planning measures. We propose three recommendations for sustainable, nature positive planning, aimed at fostering planning practices in towns and villages that respect planetary boundaries, thus contributing to transformative change and mitigating biodiversity decline: (1) Planning measures relying on biodiversity offsetting should contain strong mechanisms to ensure compliance with the mitigation hierarchy, emphasizing the reuse of degraded areas; (2) Measures that may distort competition between municipalities should be mandatory to ensure a predictable planning framework; (3) Economic instruments, such as charges for the use of pristine natural areas and agricultural land, should be developed, tested and implemented with the aim of incentivizing landowners, developers and municipal authorities to base land use on the mitigation hierarchy. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.