Habitat Management and Monitoring Plans (HMMPs): Designing for Delivery and Long-Term Outcomes

Habitat Management and Monitoring Plans (HMMPs) are becoming a central feature of ecological practice in England, particularly through Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG), but also across a much wider range of development, land management and conservation contexts. For many ecologists, this represents a significant shift in professional role — from producing surveys and working with protected species, to recommending and sometimes overseeing long-term habitat management over decades.

This course provides a practical introduction to HMMPs as delivery frameworks, focusing on how ecological intentions are translated into realistic, implementable management and monitoring actions. It explores how HMMPs operate at the interface between ecology, planning and land management, and how they must balance ecological ambition with operational reality. While grounded in the English BNG context, the course draws on wider habitat management practice to ensure relevance as policy and funding mechanisms continue to evolve.

The course is designed for ecologists working across consultancy, habitat banking, utilities, local authorities, NGOs and land-managing organisations. It recognises that HMMPs must work for a wide range of stakeholders — including land managers, developers, planners and regulators — and that long-term success depends not only on good ecology, but on deliverability, incentives and alignment with other land-use objectives. The course foregrounds the concept of stackability: designing habitat management so that ecological outcomes sit alongside other benefits such as farming, recreation, flood management or operational needs, increasing the likelihood that management persists beyond regulatory or funding requirements.

Through two interactive online sessions and a shared case study, participants move beyond templates and polygons to explore how HMMPs function in practice: how objectives are set, how management actions are selected, how monitoring informs adaptive management, and how plans can be designed to be resilient to climate change. The emphasis throughout is on HMMPs as living plans that must cope with environmental change, evolving land uses and shifting institutional contexts.

The course covers:

• The evolution of habitat management planning, from traditional management plans and LEMPs to HMMPs
• The role of HMMPs within Biodiversity Net Gain and beyond mandatory BNG
• Key ecological principles underpinning habitat management, including succession, naturalness, resilience and multifunctionality
• Writing SMART objectives for habitats commonly encountered in practice (e.g. grassland, woodland, hedgerows and wetlands)
• Selecting management actions that are ecologically appropriate and operationally realistic
• Designing monitoring programmes that are proportionate, repeatable and useful for decision-making
• Adaptive management, risk and uncertainty, including stress-testing plans against future change
• Stakeholder roles, responsibilities and “stackable” co-benefits that support long-term delivery

About the presenters

Alina is an experienced planning and sustainability professional with 18 years’ experience working in higher education, public policy, innovation and professional practice. Her work focuses on the interface between ecology, planning, land management and environmental governance, with particular interest in how policy and regulatory frameworks translate into deliverable outcomes on the ground.

Her main areas of expertise are: Spatial planning and environmental governance; Ecosystem services, natural capital and Biodiversity Net Gain; Landscape-scale climate change adaptation and mitigation planning; Design and delivery of professional and higher education programmes for environmental practitioners Recent projects include: opening up vocational pathways into nature-based green jobs for CIEEM and LANTRA; green infrastructure roadmapping for Swansea University; health and wellbeing in New Towns for Wellcome Trust; and policy briefings for the Local Government Information Unit.

Alina holds a Master’s degree in Conservation from UCL and a PhD from King’s College London, and is a Chartered Town Planner and professional member of the RTPI.

Mia Hartwell is a sustainability and engagement specialist with over 15 years’ experience supporting organisations to translate environmental ambition into practical delivery and communications. She works at the interface between sustainability and stakeholder engagement, helping teams not only design sustainability strategies, but bring others on the journey.

Mia has led and facilitated programmes across charities and corporate partners, with a specific focus on the food & farming sector. Previous work includes consulting with LEAF (Linking Environment and Farming) and leading the sustainable diets strategy as Head of Food at environmental charity Hubbub. Her experience focuses on aligning diverse stakeholder needs, setting clear and achievable objectives, and designing frameworks that adapt over time.

This course is suitable for early-career and mid-career ecologists, including:

• Ecologists working in consultancy, including those increasingly involved in advising or preparing HMMPs for development, infrastructure or habitat banking projects
• Ecologists working for utilities, renewable energy companies and other large land-using organisations, where long-term habitat management must be integrated with operational needs
• Local authority, National Park Authority and statutory body ecologists involved in reviewing, securing or overseeing HMMPs through planning and other mechanisms
• Ecologists working for NGOs, trusts and land-managing organisations responsible for delivering habitat management over the long-term
• Experienced ecologists adapting to the professional shift from site-based assessment to long-term management and monitoring

No prior experience of writing HMMPs is required.

• Explain key principles of habitat management and their importance in habitat creation and enhancement
• Understand features of a good, deliverable HMMP.
• Propose feasible implementation strategies suitable for a range of stakeholders, including land managers, developers, and conservation organisations.
• .Set clear, measurable objectives for habitat management.
• Define robust monitoring protocols to measure progress against objectives.
• Use monitoring data to adaptively manage and refine HMMPs.
• Ensure compliance with environmental legislation and planning conditions during implementation.
• Resilience of Habitat Management plans in a changing world - focusing on climate adaptation and invasive species.