Nature conservation is popular and generally a good idea. In Europe, around a fifth of the landscape is already protected, but the disappearance of animals and plants is still a particular cause for concern. Causes include the mowing of meadows, overfishing, overfertilization and artificial monocultures of spruce and corn.
On Monday, the European Union passed a new nature conservation law, according to which member states must “restore” at least 30 percent of habitats by 2030 and as much as 90 percent by 2050. “National restoration plans” are intended to guarantee that the “good status” achieved by then is maintained, which is to be measured using various indices, among other things.
This is where the problems begin. Apart from a few larger animal species, there is no reliable record of their frequency, and the fluctuations from year to year are high. The pursuit of “good condition” raises fears that old mistakes in nature conservation will be repeated: the nostalgic creation of supposed wilderness, which has not existed in Germany for centuries – everything is cultivated land.
Big cities, of all places, have the richest biodiversity; living creatures find protected niches in the labyrinth of streets and buildings. And nutrient-poor soils produce plant diversity and insect diversity, which is something we long for. Military training areas are particularly rich in species, while roadside embankments that are forced to be planted with greenery remain species-poor.
The “naturalization” of the landscape decreed by Brussels does not bode well. It provides for rigid specifications and quotas for municipalities, such as the expansion of green spaces and urban treetops, while at the same time the EU’s “Green Deal” calls for extensive cornfield deserts and wind turbines.
Critics of the law had warned that conflicts between housing, industry, agriculture and nature could only be resolved locally, not from Brussels. In Germany in particular, where most large-scale projects are paralysed due to environmental concerns, further problems are looming. For politicians, bureaucrats and associated environmental associations, however, nature conservation laws offer a proven justification for further scope for action. They will prosper, but biodiversity is unlikely to.
