Species diversity and species loss
This page is called species diversity because the official indicator measures populations, not extinction events. The difference matters: a species whose population collapses by two thirds is not extinct, but it is no longer where it used to be.
The uncomfortable part, stated up front
In Germany, species loss is not primarily a climate problem. What drives populations down is first of all how land is used: agricultural intensity, loss and fragmentation of habitats, nitrogen inputs, pesticides, sealing of soil. And climate change is still not uninvolved. Both sentences hold at the same time, and anyone who takes away only one of them has misread this page. Why it sits under climate impacts even though the first sentence qualifies that: because this is where people look for the topic. The framing is carried by the text, not by the menu heading.
What is actually measured
The official indicator is called species diversity and landscape quality. It does not measure species but populations of representative bird species across different landscape and land use types. Birds stand in for the condition of their habitat: where their populations collapse, far more than the birds is usually missing. The indicator stood at … % in .
80 % of what?
The value is a rate of target achievement. The 100 % is not a natural state and not a complete species inventory, but a target set by the federal government, to be reached by 2030. So “80 %” does not mean that 80 % of species are still there. It means four fifths of a politically defined target has been reached. For comparison, from the same series: in 1990 the index stood at 136.8, and for 1970 the Federal Environment Agency reconstructs a reference value of 214.1.
How the index has developed
Our own chart, drawn from the Federal Environment Agency's figures. Dots are single values with no measurements in between; only the solid line is a gap-free series. Reconstructed and measured values are never joined into one line.
The sub-indices,
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* Coasts and seas does not count towards the total index, that sub-indicator stands on its own. The sub-index for the Alps is suspended across the entire series.
What this series is not: The series is not annual throughout. 1970 and 1975 are reconstructions, which the Federal Environment Agency itself carries as a separate series rather than as the start of measurement. 1990 and 1995 are isolated points. Annual values only begin in 2000. There is deliberately no trend line across this series: the change in resolution and the long sideways movement since roughly 2010 would suggest a precision the data does not support.
What is driving it
In 2019 the intergovernmental biodiversity panel IPBES ranked the direct drivers of global species decline by their relative impact. That ranking is global, not German. It is used here because it is the only one agreed by an intergovernmental body, and because it neither writes climate change out nor pushes it to the front.
Land and sea use change
The strongest driver. In Germany this mainly means intensification of agriculture, loss of grassland, loss of structure in farmland, drainage, soil sealing, and the fragmentation of whatever is left. Agricultural habitats are predominantly in poor condition in the national report.
Direct exploitation
Globally above all fishing, hunting and logging. Considerably weaker in Germany than worldwide, but relevant in the Baltic Sea and for individual populations.
Climate change
Third worldwide, and currently not the largest driver in Germany either. It acts through drought years, shifted seasons, decoupled timing of flowering, insect emergence and breeding, and through ranges shifting north and uphill, where there is often no room left.
Nutrient and pollutant inputs
Above all nitrogen from agriculture and combustion, plus pesticides. Nitrogen acts as a fertiliser even where nutrient poverty was the precondition: dry grassland, heaths and bogs lose exactly those species that depend on poor soils.
Invasive alien species
The weakest of the five drivers, but locally decisive, particularly on islands and in inland waters.
What this ranking does not say: A ranking is not a breakdown. It does not say that land use causes “x percent” and climate change “y percent” of the decline. Such shares cannot be separated cleanly because the drivers act together. And the ranking is built globally. The German figures on which pressures are actually reported for which species and habitat types come from the Article 17 reporting under the Habitats Directive. They will follow as a separate data layer, which is why there is deliberately no percentage chart here yet.
Why this is not an acquittal for climate change
Read on its own, the section above easily leaves the impression that climate does not matter much. That would be wrong, for two reasons, both of which can be shown without attributing any single population collapse to climate change.
The ranking is a snapshot of today, not a forecast. It describes what has driven the decline so far. Climate pressure increases in every projection, while land use and nitrogen can be limited by policy. Extrapolating today’s ranking into tomorrow is the same mistake as turning an observed series into a climate statement.
The drivers act together, not side by side. A population already small and isolated through drainage, fragmentation and nutrient input survives a drought year less well and recolonises less easily afterwards. Climate change does not have to be the strongest driver to be the one that tips an already weakened system.
Where climate action helps nature, and where it harms it
This is the part this page can provide and a pure conservation page cannot: climate action is not automatically good for species diversity. Some measures work twice over, others buy emission cuts with habitat. Both columns are shown as equals, without a verdict.
Works twice over
- Peatland rewetting. The largest single item among the land use levers, and at the same time the return of a habitat Germany has drained almost completely. On the levers page, peatland so far appears only as a CO₂ calculation.
- Converting forests to mixed stands. Holds water better than pure conifer stands, burns less readily, and brings back the structures and deadwood on which a large share of forest species depends.
- Unsealing and sponge city. No meaningful CO₂ reduction, as stated on the adaptation page. But immediately effective for soils, microclimate and urban nature.
- Less intensive agriculture. Cuts nitrous oxide from fertilisation and nitrogen input at the same time. One of the few levers that addresses cause and consequence at once.
In conflict
Energy crops. Maize for biogas occupies land, and does so in one of the poorest cropping forms for species diversity.
Resolution: Digest residues and manure instead of purpose-grown biomass, and use biogas where storable capacity is needed rather than in baseload.
Wind power in forests and at sensitive sites. Raptors and bats are mainly affected, along with the impact of access roads and clearing.
Resolution: Site steering through regional planning, repowering on already affected land, and demand-driven shutdown during the periods of highest collision risk.
Hydropower. Every transverse structure cuts a river in two. For migratory fish, connectivity is often more decisive than water volume.
Resolution: Fish passes upstream and downstream, minimum flow requirements, and no new barriers on stretches that are still continuous. Hydropower’s contribution to expansion in Germany is small in any case.
Afforestation with the wrong species in the wrong place. Fast-growing monocultures do store carbon, but they sometimes replace open habitats that are themselves worth protecting.
Resolution: Site-appropriate provenances and mixed stands, and no afforestation on dry grassland, heaths or bogs. There, the open land is the value.
Ground-mounted solar on grassland. Competes for exactly the land whose extensification would benefit species diversity most.
Resolution: Roofs, sealed surfaces and brownfield sites first. On open land, agrivoltaics and nature-compatible design with wide row spacing and extensive management underneath.
One note belongs here: these conflicts are real, and they are also pursued by actors who follow neither climate nor conservation goals. That an argument is misused does not make it wrong, and that it is correct does not make it a reason to do nothing. That is why every conflict comes with how it can be resolved.
Two benefits, never one sum
Peatland rewetting is emission reduction and habitat gain. These two benefits are never added together on this page, and the nature benefit never appears in any tonnage figure. It is the same rule as the reverse case of urban greening, which delivers cooling and habitat but no meaningful emission reduction. Adding up benefits from different dimensions gives you a bigger number and a worse answer.
What this page does not do
The indicator measures birds, not biodiversity. Insects, plants, soil life and fungi do not appear in it, although much of the diversity sits there. European reporting delivers status assessments only every six years, not annually, and it rests on the member states’ own assessments. There is no projection here: no verified open German biodiversity projection exists, and building one would be an invention. And there is no map: no meaningful spatial snapshot exists, and one would visually turn this into a hazard page, which it is not.
Why there is no money figure here
For the consequences of climate change in Germany there is a quantified damage calculation. The loss of species diversity is not in it, and the study gives its own reason: it cannot be brought into the same unit without inventing something. This page draws the same line. Anyone looking for a figure will find the gap named there, not filled.
The cost calculation and its stated gapsSources:Indicator on species diversity and landscape quality: Umweltbundesamt 2025, after Bundesamt für Naturschutz 2025 and data of Dachverband Deutscher Avifaunisten 2025; processed for presentation. Ranking of drivers: IPBES, Global Assessment on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, 2019. Conservation status: national report under Article 17 of the Habitats Directive, reporting period 2019 to 2024, submitted by Germany to the European Commission on 30 July 2025; the European assessment based on it was still in public consultation at the time of writing and is therefore not used here. Data behind the chart: the indicator XLSX (2025-11-18 edition), processed via pipeline/uba-arten-ingest.py; the chart is our own rendering, the UBA figure itself is CC BY-NC-ND and is not reproduced.