UK Nature and Environment

In a field in the South Downs national park, undulating green hills meet the sky. In the distance, villages built of flint sit in the valleys, and chalky white cliffs lie like giant beached whales above the Channel.

For decades, the field where I’m standing has been in an arable cycle. It was last sown for wheat in 2022, and this year would have been planted with barley. Instead, it was sown with wildflowers: yarrow, vetches, clovers and oxeye daisies lie awaiting spring, when the monotonous green will break out into a sea of colour.

“We’re habitat banking,” says Ben Taylor, manager of Iford Estate farm near Lewes, in East Sussex. This farm is one of five in the country selected by government as a pilot project for the biodiversity net gain (BNG) scheme. Under the proposed rules (for England only at this stage), new roads, houses and other building projects must achieve a 10% net gain in biodiversity if nature is damaged on site: if a forest is bulldozed to make way for an apartment block, the developer must recreate a similar habitat, plus 10%. The priority is finding space for nature onsite, but if that is not possible, habitats are to be created elsewhere, ideally in the local area.