When the countries of the world herald the hot phase in the struggle for a global nature conservation agreement in Montreal from the beginning of December, Germany will play in Team Ambition. Together with the EU and numerous other countries, the federal government has joined the “Coalition of the Highly Ambitious for Man and Nature” (HAC) set up by France and Costa Rica. The aim of the informal alliance of states is to push through far-reaching resolutions for more global nature conservation at the UN Biodiversity Conference COP 15 – above all the protection of 30 percent of the land and sea surface of the planet.
However, when looking at the balance sheet in their own country, the international pioneers could not hurt a little more ambition. Because it’s not just in the Amazon rainforest or the Congo basin that nature is doing badly. “The health of Europe’s nature is in danger,” warns the European Environment Agency (EEA) in its current assessment. Many animal and plant species, habitats and ecosystems – “all vital to our well-being” – are threatened by urban sprawl, unsustainable agriculture and forestry or pollution. As a result, biodiversity in Europe continues to decline at an alarming rate. ‘Much more effort is needed to reverse current trends and ensure a resilient and healthy nature,’ warn the EU environmental auditors.
In Germany, too, the state of nature is not good. Whether in the red lists, the federal government’s reports on the implementation of the biodiversity strategy or the balance sheets on the implementation of the EU nature conservation directives: almost all scientific analyzes of the state of nature in Germany paint a bleak picture with only a few rays of hope. In recent years, there has always been an upward trend where individual species have been helped at great expense. For example, previously endangered bird species such as white-tailed eagles, black storks and cranes have been able to recover. Biodiversity and habitats in the area, on the other hand, remain under strong pressure.
According to school grades, Germany would have a five in the subject of environmental protection
Last year, the federal government took stock of how far it had come with the implementation of its strategy for more biodiversity, which it decided on in 2007. In the thematically broad analysis, the condition of water bodies and forests and the extent of land use are measured, as well as the degree of landscape fragmentation by power lines and other infrastructure or the proportion of organic farming and the public’s awareness of biological diversity. Overall, the state of nature is evaluated using 18 indicators. Because not enough up-to-date data is available for all areas, the government imposed a kind of censorship on only 13 of them: a top rating of one was missing because none of the goals it had set itself were achieved. Good to moderately satisfactory values were identified for the indicators on the degree of landscape fragmentation and more sustainable forest management. For all other eleven indicators, the federal government attests to inadequate or even insufficient progress because they remain far or even very far from the target value. According to school grades, Germany would have a five in the subject of environmental protection.
The condition of most ecosystems is also problematic. Less than ten percent of rivers, lakes and coastal waters are in good ecological condition. This is at least a slight improvement compared to the last balance from 2015, but it makes compliance with the obligation under the European Water Framework Directive, according to which all water bodies must be in good ecological condition within the next five years, unrealistic. Here, too, the main problem is agriculture: every fifth groundwater body in Germany contains far too much nitrate. “The status of grassland habitats, marine and coastal habitats, inland waters, but also moors and swamps is particularly unfavorable,” says the Federal Government’s assessment of the situation of habitats in Germany. “Only the rocks and scree slopes are mostly positive.”
As a particularly important indicator of the state of nature as a whole, the Federal Government has defined a “key indicator for species diversity and landscape quality”, which is determined on the basis of the population development of more than 50 bird species from all habitats. Birds are an ideal barometer for the state of nature as a whole because they depend on intact habitats and at the same time can react very quickly to changes. When a bird establishes itself in a habitat or its numbers increase there, it is a seal of approval for its overall ecological condition. Because then it is also good for insects, plants, water bodies or forests. If a species leaves its ancestral territory, this is tantamount to voting with its wings: the bird gives this habitat an indictment. This is apparently happening across the board, because this indicator can also be found in the current report on the biodiversity strategy in the category “far from the target value”. Improvement is not in sight in the coming years “without considerable additional efforts by the federal, state and municipal levels in as many relevant policy areas as possible”.
The recently published new version of the Red List of Breeding Birds also underlines the ecological emergency in Germany. More than half of all around 260 breeding bird species are endangered or are on a so-called early warning list due to massive population losses of still common species. Today there are around 14 million fewer birds in Germany than at the beginning of the 1990s.
Nature conservation on a large area helps
Some species have already said goodbye. Since systematic records began more than 200 years ago, 14 bird species have been considered extinct in Germany. The list could soon become much longer in one fell swoop. Six other species have not bred in this country for so long that they will be declared extinct in the next two years, unless another small miracle happens. “In Germany, there is a threat of extinction of breeding bird species on an unprecedented scale,” warn the authors of the Red List.
Other groups are no better off. According to the Red List Center, the situation is particularly critical for dragonflies, amphibians and reptiles. “The situation is similarly critical for beetles, butterflies and some groups of plants, which each comprise almost 50 percent or more species with a poor conservation status,” summarizes the center supported by the Federal Agency for Nature Conservation. Most of the species with favorable conservation status still exist among mammals.
The fact that nature can also succeed in a densely populated and heavily used country like Germany is shown above all by large protected areas such as the Wadden Sea. With almost 8,000 square kilometers of national park area along the coasts of Hamburg, Schleswig-Holstein and Lower Saxony, it is the largest contiguous nature reserve. “We haven’t lost any net biodiversity in the Wadden Sea in the last few decades,” says Hans-Ulrich Rösner, who heads the WWF Wadden Sea Office. Intensive fishing, the planned oil production and, above all, the rise in sea levels caused by climate change do not make the coastal area, which is also recognized by UNESCO as a world natural heritage site, a carefree region for him. “But it shows here that nature conservation can be successful if it is given enough space,” says Rösner. If a species comes under pressure in one place, there is still a chance that it will stay somewhere else and recover from there.