Biodiversity Positive Design Guide: A Process for Landscape Architects and Allied Professionals

The world faces a biodiversity crisis that poses an existential threat. Biodiversity is deteriorating worldwide at catastrophic rates with over one million species are threatened with extinction globally. In Australia, this crisis is particularly acute, with the highest mammal extinction rate globally and extensive native vegetation cleared since European colonisation in 1788. Currently 87 ecological communities are threatened around Australia with many ecosystems at risk of collapse.
This guide presents a process to assist landscape architects and allied professionals address this crisis in their daily work through ensuring that projects are “Biodiversity Positive”. Biodiversity Positive Design (BPD) is the process whereby biodiversity is prioritised, and net positive outcomes are achieved for nature. As the guide explains, biodiversity is multidimensional, so there are many ways to achieve this. BPD represents a fundamental shift from minimising environmental harm to actively enhancing ecological value through landscape architecture interventions.
The systematic seven-stage process for implementing BPD aligns with standard project delivery phases while embedding biodiversity considerations throughout. The process moves beyond conventional approaches that seek to "do no harm" toward delivering measurable net gains in biodiversity that achieve ecological health.