Urban comprehensive planning - identifying barriers for the maintenance of functional habitat networks

The in-depth interviews with 18 urban planners indicated that legislation was an important driver for green space planning that they paid attention to new knowledge concerning recreation values and public health, but that biodiversity maintenance was not a high priority. There was a general agreement that local governments lack necessary resources to plan for biodiversity. A majority of the respondents mentioned geographical information systems (GIS) as an important tool to integrate knowledge about biodiversity in the planning process, and to evaluate likely consequences caused by deviations from current structure plans related to an efficient use of urban green spaces to maintain biodiversity. However, an evaluation of the answers revealed that the respondents had actually overestimated their capacity to implement the normative model. To conclude, the unanimous view was that planners were interested in the maintenance of biodiversity, but were limited by knowledge and by personnel lacking suitable qualifications, as well as by inadequate organisations. Only a minority of the respondents thought that local governments should have resources for biodiversity conservation planning. Finally, we discuss how the implementation of biodiversity policies could be improved by better integration of natural and social sciences in education and policy implementation. (c) 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.