What is a protected biotope?
Protected by law:
- Natural or near-natural areas of flowing and standing inland waters including their banks and the associated natural or near-natural vegetation along the banks as well as their natural or near-natural siltation areas, oxbow lakes and regularly flooded areas;
- Bogs, swamps, reedbeds, sedge meadows, wet meadows rich in sedges and rushes, wet meadows rich in tall herbaceous plants, spring areas, inland salt marshes;
- open inland dunes, open natural boulder, rubble and scree slopes, clay and loess walls, dwarf shrub, broom and juniper heaths, bristle grassland, dry grassland, heavy metal grassland, mountain meadows, forests and shrubs in dry and warm locations;
- Quarry, swamp and alluvial forests, ravine, boulder and slope debris forests, subalpine larch and larch-pine forests;
- open rock formations, alpine grasslands as well as snow valleys and krummholz bushes, natural caves and sinkholes;
- Rocky and steep coasts, coastal dunes and beach embankments, beach lakes, lagoons with sedimentation areas, salt marshes and mudflats in coastal areas, seagrass meadows and other marine macrophyte stands, reefs, sublittoral sandbanks, mudflats with boring bottom megafauna as well as species-rich gravel, coarse sand and shingle beds in marine and coastal areas.
The following are also protected in Lower Saxony
- wet meadows rich in tall herbaceous plants and other species-rich wet grassland and wet grassland,
- mountain meadows,
- mesophilic grassland,
- Fruit tree meadows and pastures with an area of more than 2,500 m² consisting of high-stemmed fruit trees with a trunk height of more than 1.60 m / scattered fruit stands
- sinkholes
Legal protection of biotopes
The protection applies directly, i.e. all occurrences of these biotopes are protected by law. Uses that do not impair the condition are still permitted and even desired in cases where the biotope is dependent on maintenance.
Actions that lead to the destruction or significant damage of the legally protected biotope are prohibited by law.
All legally protected biotopes are recorded by the lower nature conservation authority in a public register in accordance with § 14 NNatSchG, download below. The owners and authorized users of the legally protected biotopes are informed in writing about the entry in this register and receive all information on further use if required.
The legal basis for biotope protection is Section 30 of the Federal Nature Conservation Act in conjunction with Section 24 of the Lower Saxony Nature Conservation Act (NNatSchG).
There are 269 legally protected biotopes in Salzgitter.