Threats to biodiversity | Umweltbundesamt

Introduction

More than half of Germany's land area is used for agriculture. As a habitat for a wide variety of animals, plants, fungi, and microorganisms, environmentally friendly agriculture that preserves biodiversity is particularly important.

For a long time, agriculture was considered a guarantor of species and biotope diversity in the open cultural landscape. With the intensification of crop production and the industrialization of animal husbandry, it is now one of the driving forces behind the loss of biological diversity. With increasing mechanization, fields became larger. Field copses, natural landscape elements such as hedges or flower strips, ponds, and field margins have been removed in many cases and are now rare, especially in favorable arable regions and regions of intensive livestock farming. These natural and interconnected landscape elements are extremely important for wild animals and plants.

The high use of pesticides and fertilizers exacerbates the situation, as when introduced into natural ecosystems, they displace the natural vegetation adapted to the location. The cultivation of renewable raw materials (rapeseed and corn) is also associated with intensive agricultural use. The narrow crop rotations in energy crop cultivation offer insects and birds little variety and also require the heavy use of pesticides. The habitat and refuge available for many native bird and insect species is declining. With 52 percent of Germany's species population, grassland sites are among the most species-rich biotopes in Central Europe. Extensively farmed grassland with nutrient-poor soils is an important habitat for species-rich, rare plant communities and adapted, sometimes endangered animal species. Around 40 percent of all endangered ferns and flowering plants in Germany are found in grassland (BfN 2023).

However, the diversity of organisms on and in soils also fulfills important functions in maintaining soil productivity and fertility. Many people are familiar with the functions of organisms such as pollination and pest control. However, it is often unknown that the entire conversion of plant and root residues in the soil depends on soil animals such as earthworms, springtails, mites, and ultimately soil bacteria and fungi. We make use of these functions in our home compost piles.

The more intensively agricultural soils are cultivated, the lower the number of species and occurrence of soil organisms. Increased effort is required to maintain soil fertility if these ecological services provided by nature are not available. Although legislation on the use of pesticides and fertilizers has brought about some improvements in certain areas, it is not enough to reverse the loss of biodiversity. The goal of halting species loss and reversing the trend by 2010 and 2020 has not yet been achieved. The target is now to achieve this by 2030. The indicators of the National Biodiversity Strategy, “Species Diversity and Landscape Quality” and “Endangered Species,” show only marginal changes.