Biodiversity crisis in Luxembourg: Consistent action – more natural areas and structural reforms needed

The extinction of species is even more dramatic than previously assumed. It is not one million species that are threatened with extinction, as the World Biodiversity Council (IPBES) stated a few years ago, but almost 2 million, as recent analyses show. Luxembourg is no exception, quite the contrary: three quarters of the species protected in Europe are endangered in this country and half of the protected habitats are in a poor conservation status.

This development not only represents a dramatic loss of living creatures and habitats, but is also associated with significant – and as yet unclear – extremely problematic consequences for humans. This is because the loss of our biodiversity is fuelling the climate crisis, jeopardising food security, is associated with negative consequences for health, brings with it considerable serious economic problems and much more.

All the more reason to take far more consistent action.

In a certain sense, the legal conditions in Luxembourg are quite good. In addition to EU legislation (Birds and Habitats Directives), Luxembourg has a relatively good medium to long-term strategy, the Third National Nature Conservation Plan (PNPN3), which must be implemented. The current coalition agreement also offers quite a lot of room for manoeuvre.

However, it is precisely the implementation of the strategy that is currently lacking. And what good are the best plans if they are not implemented to the required extent – in contradiction to legal requirements?

Considerable need for action!

The need for action is sobering, e.g. according to PNPN3, the following restoration goals must be achieved in addition to the conservation of all protected species and habitats:

Conserve and restore/create near-natural grassland and arable land:

Renaturalise 4,070 ha of lowland meadows (BK6510);

Conserve 9,174 ha of extensively utilised grassland without a specific biotope type, primarily as pastures for suckler cow husbandry;

Create 5,010 ha of extensive fields, fallow fields and flower strips.

Renaturalise wetlands and dry sites:

Renaturalise 700 springs and small watercourses;

Optimise or create 1,109 ponds;

Renaturalise 1,813 km of watercourses and create 500 km of riparian strips

Renaturalise 694 ha of wetlands, sedge meadows, reed beds, intermediate bogs, moor grass meadows and tall herb meadows;

Renaturalise 540 ha of dry sites

Renaturalise hedges and structural elements:

Restore 1,065 ha of orchard meadows

Optimise 4,505 ha of hedges and undergrowth

Replant 1.7 million individual trees, groups and rows of trees. (EU-wide “3 Billion Trees Initiative”)

Problems are known

However, the means and instruments used to achieve both conservation and these goals are disproportionate to the requirements:

• The implementation of the laws intended to ensure protection is not sufficiently ensured and monitored; nature conservation offences are hardly ever punished. The result: although it is actually illegal, the destruction and degradation continues without the public authorities reacting! It is downright absurd that the (illegal) destruction of habitats continues to be tolerated in parallel with the defined objectives for the renaturalisation of habitats. Yet this should be the highest (and cheapest and quickest to achieve) goal.
• The means to implement the measures are lacking, both the necessary finances and sufficient (qualified) people. However, this situation is simply ignored, although it is clear to everyone that implementation cannot succeed. Protection measures are too often limited to “side issues” instead of realising the priorities of the PNPN3.
• Without reform of agricultural policy, the objectives in open land cannot be achieved, current programmes are often pure waste, public subsidies are distributed on a large scale without minimum standards and without any objectives from the perspective of biodiversity conservation in order to compensate for the loss of income. Despite the biodiversity crisis, agricultural policy has not been fundamentally reformed for decades.
• Procedural and administrative hurdles prevent the realisation of the objectives. It is also known how outdated regulations and nature conservation authorisation procedures considerably delay or even block effective protection.
• There is no monitoring of success. Even the first and second nature conservation plans were only implemented to a limited extent. No consequences were drawn from this. Quite naively, another plan was simply adopted, which will probably also fail, as the hurdles and means of implementation (some of which are also mentioned here) are not being addressed. Regular monitoring of implementation is required. In addition, the nature conservation plan should be regularly evaluated and, if necessary, revised due to the constant degradation and inadequate renaturalisation. Furthermore, before another plan is drawn up, it is essential to analyse which obstacles have made implementation difficult or prevented it.
• The role of the various stakeholders has not been sufficiently clarified. For example, biodiversity protection is still not a mandatory mission of the municipalities. However, the clarification of responsibilities is the basis par excellence for the successful implementation of the measures. The number of theoretical actors with limited benefits (cf. COPILs) is increasing, but there is usually a lack of human and financial resources for concrete implementation measures on the ground.
• The dialogue with citizens, municipalities and farmers is completely inadequate. Even in large parts of the population, there is only a limited understanding of ecological relationships. In addition, farmers are often not sufficiently informed about the importance of prescribed measures and receive little feedback on whether their management measures have been successful. This, of course, significantly impairs the acceptance of such measures.
• Ecosystem services are still not sufficiently recognised and valued. Farmers are still subsidised on the basis of area and not on the basis of ecosystem services for society. In both public and political discourse, the economic, health and social benefits of biodiversity conservation continue to be flagrantly misjudged.

Consistent action is required

The measures to be taken by the new government are therefore obvious:

• Nature conservation must be tackled in an interdepartmental manner; the Ministry of Agriculture and the Ministry of the Environment must jointly harmonise and develop future strategic plans;
• The motto in the promotion of agricultural practice must be: “Public money for public goods”, support programmes must be reformed to encourage farms to farm more extensively – agricultural advisory practices must be reformed in this sense. The production of food that takes account of nature conservation aspects must be specifically promoted and rewarded with correct prices;
• Collaboration in partnership between all stakeholders must be expanded; holistic advice for farms is long overdue;
• Communication and information should be improved at all levels (towards the public, developers and promoters, municipalities, farmers, etc.);
• Procedures for nature conservation and water licences need to be streamlined and accelerated;
• Forest Act and forest promotion must be harmonised with biodiversity protection;
• Additional human and financial resources must be made available for concrete implementation;
• A barometer (mid-term) for the implementation of the 3rd National Nature Conservation Plan must be provided.

Translated by deepl.com (free version)

18.04.2024