Zürcher Nachrichten - Activists take German government to court over biodiversity

The German Federation for the Environment and Nature Conservation (BUND) charged that "the government is not doing enough to protect biodiversity", a day after submitting its complaint at the constitutional court.

"We are losing 150 species every day" while a third of species worldwide are at risk, said Myriam Rapior, the vice president of BUND, the German arm of the group Friends of the Earth.

The group said the rate at which fauna and flora species disappear today is "a hundred to a thousand times higher than the normal biological extinction rate", labelling it a problem that rivals the climate crisis.

It argued that the German government is obliged and treaty-bound to draw up a legally effective biodiversity protection policy that "secures our livelihoods for the future".

The biodiversity case is the latest in a series of lawsuits worldwide in recent years targeting governments and businesses with the aim of making them step up their efforts to protect the environment.

Several individuals have joined the lawsuit to demand that the government impose "measurable restrictions" on the cultivation of livestock and the use of pesticides, said Felix Ekardt, BUND's regional director in the state of Saxony.

- 'Full of exceptions' -

According to BUND and its supporters, an EU regulation on biodiversity adopted in June is "too vague in its demands", "full of exceptions" and gives politicians "far too long" to act.

Lawyer and BUND board member Franziska Hess said that the outcome of the lawsuit could be expected "in one or two years".

In 2021, Germany's constitutional court delivered a historic ruling that found that then chancellor Angela Merkel's flagship climate protection plan was "insufficient" and would "violate the freedoms" of future generations.

That prompted the government to approve a new law setting more ambitious targets to reduce carbon emissions.

The Climate Action Programme adopted in October 2023 under Merkel's successor Olaf Scholz was also judged insufficient in a court ruling last year.

Speaking at a regular government press conference on Wednesday, environment ministry spokesman Andreas Kuebler said the government was following the latest case "with calm and interest".

He said it expected the court to confirm that the government "is doing a lot to protect biodiversity".

Kuebler pointed to the government's "unprecedented" nature and climate protection plan for 2024-28 to which it has committed 3.5 billion euros ($3.8 billion).

D.Smith--NZN