"Have reverence for the plants; by them everything lives!"
(Saying above the entrance to the Botanical Garden in Berlin)

As GROSSMAN (1989) explained, this should not only be the saying for the Botanical Garden, but should also guide our interaction with the plant kingdom in daily life.

The trend of continually growing displacement of green space as a result of overdevelopment and proliferation of the built environment, especially in areas of dense population (in spite of decreasing overall population!), must be combated by means of nature protection and landscape preservation (MUERB, 1992). Along these lines the Nature Protection Law of Baden-Württemberg demands that both the open and the developed landscape, as a basis for life and as a realm for human recreation, be protected, cared for, structured, and developed so that the efficiency of ecosystems and the usability of natural resources (earth, water, air, climate, animal and plant life) are lastingly secured.

Landscape plans and open-space control plans serve to realize the goals of nature protection and landscape preservation. They comprise an assessment of the natural conditions as well as the land use requirements of the area in concern. The natural potentials to be studied include climate and air hygiene along with an ecological evaluation of the established conditions and conflicts of land use.

The elements contained in the landscape plan are incorporated into the land use plan. Depictions in the landscape plan or open-space control plan are, as far as necessary and suitable, transferred to site plans and made legally binding through corresponding regulations.

For this, the following regulatory options taken from § 9 (1) of the Federal Building Law come into consideration:

No. 10  Properties (and their uses) to be kept free of development,

No. 15  Public and private green spaces such as parks, continuous
           allotments, sport and recreation facilities, tents, pools, cemeteries,

No. 20  Property or measures for the protection, care, and development of
           earth, nature, and landscape

In the context of interference/balancing regulations for nature protection, the new § 9 (1 a) of the Federal Building Law (BauGB) establishes the regulatory possibility for equalizing measures or quantities of property in the sense of § 1 a (3) of the BauGB. These can be established either directly on the properties where the natural or landscape interference is to be expected or at other locations, whether in the remaining application area of the site plan or in another site plan.