Investigation into the delivery of biodiversity units in the west Surrey Hills AONB

It is proposed to investigate the potential for landowners within the west Surrey Hills AONB to deliver Biodiversity units. The main aim of this project is to understand where in the landscape has the greatest potential to deliver Biodiversity units, work with landowners and farmers to understand the barriers and opportunities for delivering these projects, and to identify a pipeline of habitat enhancement and creation projects that align with the aims of the project Heathland Connections: a new landscape-scale nature recovery project in the West Surrey Hills. As this is a heathland-dominated landscape, it is also proposed to investigate how the Defra BNG Metric 3.1 assesses lowland heath and the extent to which it incentivises/disincentivises enhancement or creation of lowland heath.