Source

Law for the Protection of Nature.
Passed June 26, 1935.

Today, as in the past, nature in forests and fields represents the longing, joy, and recreation of the German people.

The native landscape has changed fundamentally compared to earlier times, its vegetation has changed in many cases due to intensive agriculture and forestry, one-sided land consolidation and coniferous wood culture. Along with their natural habitats, a species-rich fauna that enlivens forests and fields has disappeared.

This development was often an economic necessity; today the idealistic, but also economic damage of such transformation of the German landscape is clearly evident.

The “conservation of natural monuments” that emerged around the turn of the century could only be partially successful because essential political and ideological preconditions were missing; only the transformation of the German people created the preconditions for effective nature conservation.

The German government considers it its duty to ensure that even the poorest of the people receive their share of German natural beauty. It has therefore passed the following Law for the Protection of Nature, which is hereby promulgated:

I. Section

Scope of the Law

§ 1 Object of Nature Conservation
The purpose of the Law for the Protection of Nature is the protection and care of native nature in all its manifestations. Nature conservation within the meaning of this law shall extend to:
(a) plants and nongame animals,
(b) natural monuments and their surroundings,
(c) nature reserves,
(d) other parts of the landscape in the open countryside,
whose preservation is in the general interest because of their rarity, beauty, peculiarity or because of their scientific, native, forestry or hunting significance.

§ 2 Plants and Animals
The protection of plants and nongame animals extends to the preservation of rare or endangered plant and animal species and to the prevention of abusive appropriation and exploitation of plants and plant parts or animals (e.g., through trade in ornamental brushwood, trade or barter in dry plants, mass catching and industrial exploitation of butterflies or other ornamental forms of fauna).

§ 3 Natural Monuments
Natural monuments within the meaning of this law are individual creations of nature whose preservation is in the public interest because of their scientific, historical, local, and folkloric significance or because of their other peculiarities (e.g., rocks, geological outcrops, hiking boulders, glacier tracks, springs, watercourses, waterfalls, old or rare trees).

§ 4 Nature Reserves
(1) Nature reserves within the meaning of this law are specifically delineated districts in which a special protection of nature in its entirety (earth-historically significant forms of the landscape, natural plant associations, natural communities of fauna) or in individual parts thereof (bird sanctuaries, shrublands, plant sanctuaries, etc.) is in the public interest for scientific, historical, local and folkloric reasons or because of their scenic beauty or character.
(2) National or state-owned districts of outstanding size and importance (national nature reserves – § 18) may be claimed in whole or in part exclusively for nature conservation purposes.

§ 5 Other Parts of the Landscape
Other parts of the landscape in the open countryside which do not meet the requirements of §§ 3 and 4 but contribute to the ornamentation and enlivenment of the landscape or deserve preservation in the interest of wildlife, especially songbirds and small game hunting (e.g., trees, groups of trees and shrubs, groves, avenues, hedgerows, hedgerows and other hedges, as well as parks and cemeteries) may also be subject to the protection of this law. Protection may also extend to preserving the landscape from disfiguring encroachment.

§ 6 Restrictions
The protection of nature shall not affect areas used exclusively or primarily for the purposes of

the military,
important public roads,
maritime and inland navigation or
vital economic enterprises

shall not be impaired in their use.

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