Reading tip on the Nature Restoration Law
Background, development and progress of the legislative process of the Nature Restoration Law:
The creation and adoption of the EU Nature Restoration Law (NLR) was a political thriller like no other. In the extremely heated debates during the legislative process, lobbyists and political groups opposed to the law did not hold back on “fake news” and dystopian scenarios. The happy ending was narrow: the Nature Restoration Law was only adopted last summer because Austria’s Environment Minister Leonore Gewessler voted for the law in the Council against the wishes of her head of government and according to her conscience. This brought a two-year debate to a halfway happy end – halfway, because the text of the law was repeatedly subject to substantial changes. This means that, contrary to a planned comparatively simple administrative process, the compromises made have resulted in an unnecessarily complex system of objectives.
The reason and background for the Nature Restoration Law is the dramatically poor state of our nature and biodiversity. We are not only threatened by a climate catastrophe, but also by a mass extinction of species and the loss of natural ecological communities that has rarely occurred in this dramatic and rapid manner in the long history of evolution. The effects on ecosystem services that are essential to our existence are extremely threatening for human civilizations. This also applies to the EU states and especially to countries like Germany with very intensive agricultural and forestry systems; numerous pieces of evidence clearly show that there have been no changes in the trend so far.
The political dissent, including the call for a complete boycott, was also incomprehensible because the WVO simply implements the UN agreements on climate and biodiversity protection that are binding under international law. Furthermore, the WVO is also the central implementation instrument of the goals defined by the EU itself in the Green Deal project.
A renowned group of authors led by Prof. Dr. Rainer Luick has examined the complex nature of the WVO in a three-part essay. The first part, which has just been published in the journal Nature Conservation and Landscape Planning, examines the reason, background and history of its creation. The other parts, which will appear in the subsequent issues in April and May, will primarily examine the implementation steps and concrete effects of the WVO in the context of the forest. Due to the high relevance of the topic, the articles are made available open access and also in English translation. The following links for Part 1:
Luick, R., Jedicke, E., Fartmann, T., Grossmann, M. & Potthast, T. (2025): Background, development and progress of the legislative process -a review The EU Nature Restoration Law. Naturschutz und Landschaftsplanung (NuL) 57(3):12-2. DOI.10.1399/NuL.110576