These two projects were effective in initiating discussions about integrating biodiversity plans into developmental planning. The interactions in these early projects helped to build relationships, including cross-scale relationships at both municipal and provincial level that would sustain later, more substantial involvement. However, several lessons were learnt through these interactions, most importantly that the highly scientific plans developed by the academic community where often not easily integrated into municipal planning processes without considerable adaptation and ‘translation’ into the language used by municipal planners. This meant that once outside support from the biodiversity sector ceased, often at the end of the projects, the spatial planners reverted to the status quo without taking full advantage of the biodiversity plans that were available. Essentially a biodiversity mainstreaming project, the outcomes of the BCSD project included requirements to embed biodiversity objectives into land-use management in the Western Cape. It was apparent during project design that this would require biodiversity plans at a corresponding spatial scale to that of land-use planning and environmental assessment and decision-making, in other words at the site-scale.