Measures to protect biodiversity: individual action
What can each and every individual do to preserve biodiversity? There is a lot of potential in individual trade to increase local biodiversity. By making your own purchasing decisions, you can consume less or more consciously. This has an impact on biodiversity conservation.
Nutritional and consumer behaviour
Our own diet influences how much land needs to be cultivated for food production. Biodiversity can be protected if food requires as little land as possible. Currently, the largest proportion of agricultural land is used for the cultivation of animal feed.
A diet that goes hand in hand with a significantly lower land requirement in agricultural production is, above all, a more plant-based diet. More food can be produced on less land if it is consumed directly by humans and not first fed to farm animals.
Audioplayer
Biologist Prof Dr Katrin Böhning-Gaese on the role of our diet
Audio in German | “It is quite clear that high meat consumption is a factor. We could feed a lot more people within a given area if everyone followed a more vegetarian and low-meat diet as opposed to particularly high meat consumption. So the reduction in productivity can actually be compensated to a considerable extent by how we eat as humans.”
Copyright: Peter Kiefer
The choice of agricultural products at the supermarket checkout can also indirectly support biodiversity. Farms that work according to the rules of organic farming achieve an average of 30 per cent higher biodiversity. In the case of internationally traded agricultural goods such as coffee, cocoa or sugar, it is possible to ensure deforestation-free supply chains. Soya, palm oil, coffee, cocoa, sugar, beef and rubber have the greatest global impact on the loss of vertebrate biodiversity. By making conscious purchasing decisions at the supermarket checkout, each and every one of us can choose products that respect deforestation-free supply chains in the production of these goods.
Audioplayer
Agricultural biologist Prof. Dr Josef Settele on consumer behaviour
Audio in German | “The bigger picture has a lot to do with consumption.”
More sustainable consumption requires a suitable political framework, particularly with regard to the impact on the environment. So far, for example, a large part of the follow-up costs caused by intensive livestock farming and the high land requirements for meat production have not been visible.
Questions and answers
Question
What are the external costs of meat production?
Answer
External costs of meat production are costs that are not included in the retail price of meat but are borne by society, the environment or future generations. These include high emission figures. According to a report by the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO), around 14.5 percent of global man-made emissions come from livestock farming. In the EU, soya is playing an increasingly important role as animal feed for livestock farming. Around 60 kilograms of soya are consumed per capita per year in the EU. A full 55 kilograms of this is used as animal feed in meat, eggs, milk or fish. Tropical forests in countries such as Brazil are cut down to grow it. At home, intensive livestock farming also causes high levels of nitrate pollution as well as air and water pollution.
One way to steer sustainable consumption would be to make the costs of animal-based food production, which have not yet been taken into account, visible, for example through changes to VAT, labelling on food and promoting nutritional education.
In addition to reducing the amount of land required, the individual reduction of food waste would also have a positive effect. Worldwide, around 14 per cent of food is lost between harvest and wholesale and retail. Around 17 per cent of global food waste is generated in private households, in out-of-home catering (restaurants, hotels, canteens, cafeterias, etc.) and in wholesale and retail. In Germany, more than 50 per cent of all food waste is generated in private households.
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Landscape ecologist Prof. Dr. Alexandra-Maria Klein part played by consumers
Audio in German | “We all need to work on ourselves.”
Deepening the topic
- Digital dossier "15 answers to 15 questions on biodiversity": How should nutrition change? (German only)
- Digital dossier "Agricultural trade and consumption", Soya: plate or trough? (German only)
- Discussion paper "How can international agricultural trade contribute to biodiversity conservation, climate protection and food security? In favour of coherent governance of consumption, production and trade" (2025, German only)
Biodiversity on the doorstep
Biodiversity starts on a small scale. Biodiversity can be supported on your own balcony or in your own garden with just a few resources. Compared to exotic garden and balcony plants, native plant species provide more food for local insects. Flowering meadows, undergrowth and the avoidance of pesticides and chemical fertilisers also support native flora and fauna. The use of more green spaces, green facades and roofs also contributes to health and helps to deal with periods of heat.
Future workshop Landwende
In April 2024, the Leopoldina hosted the future workshop "Landwende: How do we want to live?" took place. 29 young adults between the ages of 18 and 27 discussed the ideal rural district in 2070. The ideal rural district is a holistic approach that aims to harmonise issues of shared sustainable management with those of socially just coexistence. The ideas therefore range from local and regional value creation within planetary boundaries, the circular economy, ecological agriculture and forestry to liveable housing, sustainable mobility, inclusion and participation.
Video Future workshop Landwende: How do we want to live?
The participants contributed their different social and professional perspectives, for example from agriculture, social professions, medicine, IT and forestry, to the discussion. They were supported by scientists from the disciplines of biodiversity, climate, nutrition, ethics, psychology, economics, law and politics.
Published: October 2020, Updated: April 2026