Nature positive infrastructure - habitat connectivity structures, a call to arms

'Linear infrastructure, including the Strategic Road Network, fragments habitats and landscapes creating impassable barriers for flora and fauna. Where populations of animals can't move from their home ranges they become isolated and vulnerable to local extinction through disease, extreme events and inbreeding. Isolation of habitats also makes them increasingly vulnerable to extinction from climate change. In the UK habitat connectivity structures that restore species movement and physical connection of habitats, such as green-bridges, mammal tunnels and underpasses are rare. Although, they are becoming increasingly common due to planning consent requirements. Nevertheless, on the 4,500 miles of Strategic Road Infrastructure in England habitat connectivity features are still few and far between. Mass restoration of habitat connectivity across a Strategic Nature Network and using wildlife crossing structures would be transformative for the UK public as well as our ecosystems. The UK is decades behind other nations in the application of habitat defragmentation structures. In the last 15 years the Dutch transport authority have built approximately 70 large green bridges and approximately 200 smaller interventions across its road and rail network, at time of writing National Highways have built 2. Designing and constructing structures for wildlife, as well as people, on a scale that will make meaningful difference to UK nature will require our industry to unite and innovate to deliver a lasting legacy of nature restoration.'