Re-Generation: Nature as Critical Infrastructure

On March 11, 2026, the Dutch regeneration platform Re-Generation published a longread interview with me for its Pioneers series. Speaking with journalist Nadine Maarhuis, I traced the line from a childhood forest that became a subdivision called "Forest Hills" to the argument I make now: that urban nature is critical infrastructure, and that we would never accept for trees the missing baseline data we tolerate for cables, bridges, or tram lines. The conversation moves through the evidence linking greenery to life expectancy, birth outcomes, and children's school performance — and the mechanisms still under scientific debate — before taking up the harder question of whether measuring nature in euros protects it or diminishes it. It closes on a single word: hyperlocal. Photography by Diane van der Marel. Published in Dutch and English.