Nature Conservation Law and Agri-Environmental Law

The research within this field focuses on German and European nature conservation law and on the environmental and sectoral laws related to agriculture. Because they are so closely related, issues of water protection and soil protection as well as climate change mitigation and adaptation are also important topics of investigation.

On the one hand, the department supports the amendment and implementation processes in nature conservation law, which are required primarily by the European Regulation on Nature Restoration adopted in 2024, as well as by the long-standing directives on habitat, species, and bird protection and the European network of protected areas, ‘Natura 2000.’ On the other hand, it examines and develops proposals to improve nature conservation law in light of the ongoing loss of biodiversity and global climate change.

Closely related to this, but going beyond nature conservation, is the quest for regulatory models that promote environmentally sustainable land use in agriculture and forestry in order to conserve biodiversity and ecosystem functions and services for future generations. In cooperation with other scientific disciplines, we investigate how legal instruments help to defuse land-use conflicts and promote and maintain synergies between ecosystems and anthropogenic uses.


The projects of the research focus are listed in the overview of the projects of the Department of Environmental and Planning Law.