Forget all the nonsense about protecting nature and species, writes British biologist Charlie Gardner from the University of Kent. The way things have been thought and done so far doesn’t achieve anything.
“We need a transformative change in the way we deal with nature; we have to move from preserving biodiversity to a survival ecology,” says Gardner, whose radical theses also inspire ecologists and biologists in this country. But the actions of German and European politics have so far been miles away from Gardner’s demands.
When Gardner speaks of survival ecology, he means strengthening ecosystems so that they are able to adapt to climate change and continue to provide the services on which life on Earth depends. Drinking water, fine dust-free breathing air, food. Gardner’s aim is not to promote these ecosystem services – but rather to manage the ecological system holistically for the benefit of all living beings.
That sounds banal, but under a survival ecology approach, city and nature, people, animals, plants, forests and meadows are thought of together as a system of ecological dependencies, a supra-ecosystemic one. Survival ecology requires that people withdraw. And no areas and ecosystems are renatured, but rather the ecosystems and the animals, plants, fungi and bacteria living in them leave the areas and let them do it themselves.
There may be a touch of this in the EU Restoration Regulation, according to which forests, lakes, marine areas and floodplains are to be restored to a natural state on a large scale by 2030. But at the same time, these efforts continue to fail. Why has the approach failed in the past? And what would it take for him to prevail?
When nature conservation becomes projectionitis
The very idea of giving land back to nature, i.e. creating ecological niches, is already considered radical in German politics. Because there, nature only comes to life in projects. An employee of the Federal Environment Ministry speaks desperately of “projectionitis” – even state conservationists know that they cannot keep biological diversity and ecosystems alive with projects.
Against better judgment, the parties and their representatives in federal and state governments seem to lack the political will to halt the loss of biological diversity. They would have to turn the country around, transform the economy and society. Instead, the state gives nature conservation associations money for a few years for rewetting or renaturation or the reintroduction of a rare animal species. The nature conservation associations then put together a project team, work through the project plan for three or five years and write a report.
Politicians are also packaging big ideas for climate crisis-friendly transformation into projects. The traffic light government has its nature and climate protection ambitions Natural climate protection action program housed, which the CDU/CSU and SPD continue in the current government. There are many sensible ideas and projects in there, but they will not advance the ecological transformation of the ecosystems that are dwindling in the climate crisis.
For example, 5,000 hectares of moorland will be waterlogged in the next ten years. Wet bogs store more carbon than forestswhich is why moors offer a nature-based solution to climate protection. However, Germany would have to wetting 50,000 hectares every yearin order to achieve the climate goals with the moor.
Within a mental system, a thought structure can only be changed with a vision of what the future should look like. It makes sense to leave behind what you no longer need and get a picture of the imagined reality, says management consultant Otto Scharmer from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Scharmer has designed the theory U for new systemic thinking in organizations: as in a U on the left side, observe the old and descend, mentally present the future in the curve of the U and ascend in the right leg and try out the new. When taken to its logical conclusion, Theory U leads “from ego to ecosystem consciousness,” says Scharmer.
Too many interests, too little space for nature
In the case of the current way of dealing with nature, such a radical mental clearing out with the desired new start is difficult because so many human interests want to use it. Farmers want to cultivate the land with chemicals and machines, forest owners want to make money with fast, straight-growing trees in forests, and hydropower operators want to dam streams and rivers. In addition to industrial land use, there are anglers, mountain bikers, skiers and all imaginable other forms of recreational use. Everyone wants nature, but the way they need it.
But nature needs space above all. Because hot times change life. They destroy the livelihoods of countless species of animals, protozoa, plants and fungi. In Germany, the European beeches will hardly survive the warming and drought, and their disappearance will change the forests in unforeseeable ways.
In the already warm winters, herbs, bushes and trees bloom earlier, leaves sprout, awakened insects lay their eggs earlier, the larvae hatch at the wrong time for the birds that have set their breeding for their lifetime. When nightingales, pied flycatchers, fitis and other migratory birds come from Africa to breed, insects and larvae have already been fed to their young by the non-migratory bird species. The ecological processes that have been coordinated since time immemorial no longer converge.
Since the EU’s Flora-Fauna-Habitat Directive of 1992, EU states have actually been trying to preserve typical habitats (habitats) and the animals (fauna) and plants (flora) that live in them. So it’s no longer about protecting storks, but rather river floodplains, on whose wet meadows the storks find frogs. But the FFH directive has neither stopped the extinction of species nor saved ecosystems from decay and does not even protect nature in the protected areas. 80 percent of the habitat types in Germany that are under FFH protection are in an “unfavorable condition,” according to the Federal Agency for Nature Conservation (BfN).
Nature, or better yet biodiversity and the services provided by ecosystems such as drinking water, clean breathing air, pollinating insects, is now supposed to be saved by the EU Recovery Regulation by 2030. This has automatically had legal force in all member states since August 2024. Depending on the ecosystem, 20 to 30 percent should be ecologically restored to a natural state. Above all, this means: more space and peace for nature. So does the Restoration Ordinance carry the radical spirit of an ecology of survival?
Survival ecology is a way of thinking
Since the fall, state conservationists have been compiling lists of areas in which they want to restore nature. By September 2026, the federal government must report to the EU which large natural areas will be renatured from now on. For example in the forest to strengthen the dwindling communities of forest birds. The BfN puts all of Germany’s forests on the list. That’s a third of the country, and purely formally, Germany already meets the criteria of the Restoration Ordinance with its state forests and protected areas.
But how exactly the ecosystems are restored so that the forest birds that live there find a suitable habitat for them is something that the state conservationists want to investigate in later work steps and on a project basis in individual areas. Just as they have done unsuccessfully in the past.
“Survival ecology is a way of thinking, rather than a plan or a toolbox,” says biologist Gardner. It is intended to open up the mental space in which visions and plans for hopeful action emerge. And isn’t that what we need when the old system fails?
Doing, acting, starting strengthens the feeling of one’s own effectiveness and nourishes the hope of mastering the uncertain future. And what would be possible in Germany if trees, bushes and herbs grew in the cities where cars are parked? A leaf umbrella would then shade and cool life and activity. Apples, kale, tomatoes, potatoes would grow between the houses.
Rivers meandered through the landscape again, where people don’t necessarily have to build into the floodplain. Trees could grow until they were thick and strong and could withstand the storms of hot times. There were fish in the lakes again. Dense forests would cool the environment again and the moors would secure groundwater for everyone; the forest floor would spring under every step.