Forget all the nonsense about nature and species protection, writes the British biologist Charlie Gardner of the University of Kent. As things have been thought and done so far, it accomplishes nothing.
“We need a transformative shift in how we treat nature; we must move from conserving biodiversity toward a survival ecology,” Gardner says, whose radical theses also inspire ecologists here. Yet the actions of German and European politics remain miles away from Gardner’s demands.
When Gardner speaks of survival ecology, he means strengthening ecosystems so that they are able on their own to adapt to climate change and continue to provide the services on which life on Earth depends. Drinking water, dust-free air to breathe, food. In this, Gardner is not aiming to promote those ecosystem services, but to manage the ecological system holistically for the benefit of all living beings.
That may sound banal, but under a survival-ecological approach, city and nature, humans, animals, plants, forests and meadows are conceived together as a system of ecological dependencies, a supra-ecological oneness. Survival ecology requires humans to step back. And not renature areas and ecosystems themselves, but leave land to the ecosystems and the living beings—animals, plants, fungi, bacteria—within them and let them do their work.
There may be a hint of this in the EU’s Restoration Regulation, according to which forests, lakes, marine areas, and river floodplains should be restored to a natural state on a large scale by 2030. Yet these efforts keep failing time and again. Why has the approach failed in the past? And what would it take for it to prevail?
When Nature Conservation Becomes Projectionitis
The mere idea of returning land to nature, thereby creating ecological niches, is already considered radical in the German political mindset. There, nature lives only in projects. A staffer at the Federal Environment Ministry speaks of “Projectionitis” in despair—state conservationists know that biodiversity and ecosystems cannot be kept alive with projects.
Far from the knowledge needed, it seems, the parties and their representatives in federal and state governments lack the political will to stop the loss of biological diversity. They would need to transform the country, overhaul the economy and society. Instead, the state funds nature-conservation associations for a few years for rewetting or renaturation or the reintroduction of a rare species. Then conservation groups form a project team, carry out the project plan for three or five years, and write a report.
Even large ideas for climate-appropriate transformation are packaged by politics as projects. The traffic-light government has embedded its nature and climate protection ambitions in the Action Programme for Natural Climate Protection, which is being continued by CDU/CSU and SPD in the current government. Many sensible ideas and measures are embedded there, but they will not advance the ecological restructuring needed for the climate-crumbling ecosystems.
For example, 5,000 hectares of bog will be rewetted over the next ten years. Wet bogs store more carbon than forests, making them a nature-based solution in climate protection. However, Germany would need to wet 50,000 hectares every year to meet its climate goals with bogs.
Within a mental system, a structure of thought can only be changed with a vision of what the future should look like. It is sensible to let go of what is no longer needed and to form a mental image of the imagined reality, says management consultant Otto Scharmer of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
For new systemic thinking in organizations, Scharmer has developed the Theory U: how, like in a U, on the left side you observe the old and step down; you mentally design the future in the curve of the U; on the right leg you step up and try the new. Taken to its end, Theory U leads “from ego to ecosystem awareness,” says Scharmer.
Too Many Interests, Too Little Room for Nature
In the case of the current approach to nature, such a radical mental clearing with a desired restart is difficult, because so many human interests want to use it. Farmers want to plow land with chemicals and machines, forest owners want to profit from fast-growing, straight trees in forests, hydropower operators want to dam streams and rivers. Alongside industrial land use come anglers, mountain bikers, skiers and all sorts of other forms of recreational use. Everyone wants nature, but the kind they need.
Yet nature, above all, needs space. Because hot periods alter life. They destroy the living foundations of countless species among animals, single-celled organisms, plants, fungi. In Germany, the European beech will scarcely survive the warming and drought, and its disappearance will alter the forests in unpredictable ways.
In the already warmer winters, herbs, shrubs, and trees bloom earlier; leaves sprout earlier; awakened insects lay eggs earlier, the larvae hatch out of sync with the birds that have timed their breeding to their lifespans. When nightingales, blackcaps, chiffchaffs and other migratory birds from Africa come to breed, insects and larvae have already been fed to the non-migratory bird species for their young. The ecologically coordinated processes that have long kept in step no longer align.
In fact, since the Flora-Fauna-Habitat Directive of the EU in 1992, the EU states have tried to preserve typical habitats (habitat) and the animals (fauna) and plants (flora living in them. Not just protect storks, but river floodplains, where the storks find frogs on their wet meadows. Yet the FFH Directive has neither halted species extinction nor preserved ecosystems from decline and does not even protect nature within protected areas. 80 percent of FFH-protected habitat types in Germany are in an “unfavorable condition,” says the Federal Agency for Nature Conservation (BfN).
Nature, or better biodiversity and the ecosystem services provided by ecosystems such as drinking water, clean air, pollinating insects, are now to be saved by the EU Restoration Regulation by 2030. It has had legal effect in all member states since August 2024. Depending on the ecosystem, 20 to 30 percent should be restored ecologically to a natural state. This mainly means more space and quiet for nature. Does the Restoration Regulation therefore carry the radical spirit of a survival ecology?
Survival Ecology Is a Way of Thinking
State conservationists have been compiling lists of areas to restore since autumn. By September 2026, the federal government must report to the EU which large natural spaces will henceforth be renatured. For example, in the forest, to strengthen the dwindling communities of forest birds. The BfN is listing all of Germany’s forests. That’s a third of the country, and formally Germany already meets the Restoration Regulation’s criteria with its state forests and protected areas.
But exactly how the ecosystems will be restored so that the forest birds living there find a suitable habitat is to be explored in later steps, in project-like fashion, in individual areas. Just as they have failed to do in the past.
“Survival ecology is a way of thinking, rather than a plan or a toolbox,” says biologist Gardner. It should open the mental space in which visions and plans for hopeful action can emerge. And isn’t that what we need when the old system fails?
Acting, taking action, starting now strengthens the sense of personal efficacy and nourishes the hope to master the uncertain future. And what could be possible in Germany if trees, shrubs, and herbs grew in the cities where cars are parked? A leafy canopy would shade and cool life and activity. Apples, kale, tomatoes, and potatoes could grow between the houses.
Rivers would meander again through the landscape, where people do not have to build all the way to the floodplain. Trees could grow tall and strong to withstand the storms of hot periods. In lakes, fish would once again swim. Dense forests would once more cool the surroundings and, together with the moors, secure groundwater for everyone, while the forest floor would cushion every step.
