Status in Denmark

EU membership: Yes.

Primary ecosystems and natural landscape: Natural ecosystems in Denmark are fragmented and relatively small. More than half of the Danish land area is used for farming, which makes farmers the main land­owners and primary care­takers of ecosystems. Agriculture therefore poses a major challenge to the goal of increasing the size of protected natural areas. Denmark is also the densest populated of the three countries, which also contributes to the challenges. 

Main biodiversity challenges: Intensive land use and farming leaves little room for wild nature and also has spillover effects on the health of coastal waters due to agricultural pollutants. To achieve the goal of 30% nature protection both on land and the sea, Denmark needs to reduce the land area used for farming. There is disagreement on what areas are truly “protected” and Denmark needs a useful definition of this term.

No official governmental assess­ment has been prepared concerning the Danish status and progress towards the GBF targets adopted in 2022. Nor have any independent institutions, such as universities or associations, prepared such assessments. Despite the agreed international obligations, the Danish NBSAPs mainly address the targets through qualitative lists of various activities and initiatives, mainly focusing on a few targets. Overall, there are currently few political initiatives with a direct focus on Denmark living up to the targets. This is in spite of the fact that decades of monitoring reports have consistently documented the very poor condition of Danish nature and biodiversity.

Regarding Target 3 in GBF (30% of land, waters and sea conserved), the Danish NBSAPs report that 15% of the land area is protected. At sea, protected areas will cover 29%, after implementation of existing plans. However, the Danish Biodiversity Council, appointed by the government, has disputed these figures. It estimates that only 1.6% should count with certainty as protected area on land. Another 5.5% should be assessed further, while the remaining areas under different formal protection schemes are subject to either forestry or intensive agri­culture, or insufficient legal protection. At sea, only around 2% should count, while the rest is insufficiently protected and/or subject to benthic trawling.

Denmark has established a strong framework to support the link between science and policy concerning biodiversity, nature, and environment. Most prominent are The Biodiversity Council (Bio­diversitets­rådet) and the Climate Council (Klimarådet), established in 2015 and 2020 as advisory bodies to guide governmental policies. The members of the councils are independent university scientists appointed by the govern­ment, but the government has no obligation to follow their recommendations. The Danish Ministry of Environment, together with the universities, has also established a national office hosted and run by the universities to communicate the work of IPBES and encourage Danish scientists to participate.

Recent initiatives seem to promote coordination across sectors in Danish nature, biodiversity, and environmental policy, which has traditionally been strongly divided. One example is the “Agreement on a Green Denmark” (“Den Grønne Trepart”) made in 2024 between the government, the agriculture and business community, and a green NGO. It involves abandoning agriculture on 400,000 hectares of land (10% of Denmark) to benefit the aquatic environment and climate as well as nature and biodiversity. Another example is the “Biodiversity Partnerships” (Biodiversitetspartnerskabet) established by the Ministry of Environment, the Federation of Danish Industries, and the universities. These partnerships have created “idea catalogues” with recommendations for how businesses can minimize their biodiversity impacts or even improve the status of biodiversity.

While there are currently few concrete political initiatives that focus on Denmark living up to the agreed GBF targets, there is an increasing concern for biodiversity loss. This is being expressed by the general public interest and increasing focus from the private sector. A dramatic increase in the number of media reports supports this observation, as do several recent political agreements. A simple search for how often the word “biodiversitet” (biodiversity) appeared in the Danish Media via the database Infomedia (which includes internet media, regional and local media, local weekly newspapers, magazines, national newspapers, news services, radio, and TV) illustrates this increasing focus starting in 2019–2020.

Denmark benefits from having a relatively strong legal and institutional frame­work in place which can be used as a foundation for improvement when seeking to achieve the GBF targets. Denmark also benefits from having a very strong research sector, where scientists have been working across disciplines to provide policy advice that considers both ecological and climate factors, as well as economic and societal considerations. These scientific efforts are supported institutionally by the formation of independent, government-funded councils (e.g., the Biodiversity Council and the Climate Council), which provide a link between science and policy making. In general, it seems that Denmark is in a transitional phase where the political actors in parliament and government have demonstrated awareness that structural changes are necessary to preserve nature and they have taken some steps in that direction. Whether these steps are sufficient is a matter of contention, but at least they are indicative of a cultural shift and a willingness to address the issues. At the same time, there is a strong tendency in civil society to push for more changes to address both biodiversity and climate issues. In summary, there is a clear move­ment towards changes in Denmark expressed both at the scientific, policy and societal level, but at this point, it is too early to say how these changes will be implemented or what effects they will have.

In January 2024, the Danish govern­ment called for negotiations between the government, the lobby and interest group for agri­cultural industries, some labour unions, the Danish association of municipalities, the largest organisation of employers, and one environmental NGO (Danmarks Naturfredningsforening). The purpose of the negotiations was to come to a comprehensive agree­ment on the future of agricultural land use in Denmark. What resulted was referred to as “The Green Tripartite” (“Den Grønne Trepart”, 2024). This included plans to decrease both nitrate and greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture, mainly for the benefit of the coastal environment and the climate (aligning with GBF Targets 7 and 8). Converting farmland into natural areas would also benefit biodiversity (addressing GBF Targets 1–3), however, this effect depends very much on how and where it is implemented.

The agreement proposes changes of about 15% existing Danish farmland and close to 10% of the total Danish land area for afforestation, restoration of wetlands, and other actions. The afforestation will include both unmanaged forest and plantations for wood production. As this conversion of farmland requires action by private landowners, the agreement sets aside a new “Green Area Adjustment Fund” (Den Grønne Arealfund”) for public purchase of land and for private initiatives for land changes. Furthermore, the agreement introduces a greenhouse gas tax on agriculture and animal production which is, to our knowledge, the first of its kind in the world.

This agreement could potentially be the most important initiative affecting biodiversity and environ­ment in Denmark in recent times and for many years to come, and it is certainly presented as such to the public. However, the practical consequences and implications of its implementation are still uncertain and will hopefully become clearer in the future. Concerns and criticisms include that isolated changes in land use in small areas may not be connected enough for sustaining thriving ecosystems, emission taxes are too low and have too many loopholes to be effective, and the reliance on voluntary actions and participation is not a strong guarantee of proper implementation. It is, however, interesting and positive that this plan indicates a more comprehensive “systems approach” to tackle the integrated issues of climate, pollution, biodiversity, land use and agri­culture, rather than treating them as separate issues. Additionally, the political process was some­what aligned with the principles of the Ecosystem Approach by bringing some of the relevant parties together to encourage them to come to an agreement.

The primary obstacle for bio­diversity conservation in Denmark is related to intensive land use, which takes up space for nature and affects the coastal waters and ocean due to agri­cultural nutrient pollutants. Thus, the focus in Denmark has been on the GBF targets related to land use (Targets 1–3) as well as the issue of pollution (Target 7) as it relates to land use. Furthermore, Denmark does have a relatively strong institutional structure for scientific capacity building and knowledge transfer (Targets 20–21). Other issues addressed by Targets 4–8, such as sustainable trade and harvest of wild species (Target 5), invasive alien species (Target 6), and impacts of climate change on biodiversity (Target 8) are partially covered by a combination of EU regulations and Danish laws. However, there are still significant gaps in restrictions and enforcement, especially as relates to benthic trawling and marine invasive species.

Headline indicator: 3.1 Coverage of protected areas and OECMs

Given that the overarching obstacle to Denmark’s achieve­ment of the GBF targets is land use (which concerns both land and ocean), the focus is on reports and initiatives that relate to Targets 1–3 on spatial planning/​manage­ment, restoration, and con­serva­tion.

In 2020, the Danish parliament voted on an agreement (“Natur og Biodiversitetspakken”) which included the establishment of an advisory body, The Biodiversity Council (Biodiversitetsrådet), to guide government policies. The members are independent university scientists appointed by the government, and the council is governmentally funded, but the government has no obligation to follow its recommendations. Based on their interpretation of the relevant EU-guidelines on protected areas, combined with targeted area analyses, the Biodiversity Council estimates that only 1.6% of the Danish land area and 1.9% of the sea can currently be counted as protected with certainty while another 5.5% of land and 0.5% of the sea could potentially be considered protected depending on further assessment of specific areas and their management. No areas on land or sea in Denmark currently qualify as strictly protected but the council estimates that the areas already protected could eventually achieve that status. There is thus an immense discrepancy between this interpretation and the areas reported as protected by the Danish government. As mentioned above, the Danish NBSAP reports that 15% of the land area is protected, and 29% of the sea will be protected, after implemen­tation of existing plans.

The reason for this discrepancy is the lack of agreement on what counts as “protected”. Many areas in Denmark with an official status of “protected” (including the Natura 2000 areas) are only legally protected against specific activities, or only specific species or habitats are protected. In most areas, the protection schemes do not include a general protection of the biodiversity and natural eco­systems. Another issue is that some officially “protected areas” in Denmark on land are subject to agriculture and forestry or include areas with summer cabins or permanent human settlements. The Biodiversity Council argues that such areas should not count as “protected nature”. The same applies for formally protected areas that are subject to benthic trawling.

There is thus no official consensus on what the word “protection” entails. This is not merely a Danish issue, but part of a general European tendency of lax national implementation of EU nature laws. For example, destructive fishing is prevalent inside the Natura 2000 network and bottom trawling occurs in 86% of the European area officially designated to protect bottom habitats. We expect that disputes over these definitions will continue in Denmark but recognize that there are signs in both government statements, civil society and science-based policy documents pointing towards giving more content to the concept of “nature protection” in Denmark.