The Agency provides the German Environment Ministry with professional and scientific assistance in all nature conservation and land management issues and in international cooperation activities.

BfN is involved and has links with numerous activities to conserve biodiversity and natural ecosystems in Germany and internationally.

The Agency therefore maintains an ongoing dialogue with policymakers, business, the scientific community, educators and the media, constantly adapting the nature conservation toolkit to societal change.

Doing so requires in-depth knowledge of the complex interrelationships in the natural environment and of the short and long-term effects of human activities on ecosystems.

Topical examples include climate change – which poses huge problems not just for humanity, but for entire regions and much of life on earth – and the sustainable use of renewable energy.

As well as providing support for policy-making at national level, the Agency also works in close cooperation with authorities in each of Germany's sixteen states.

One aim here is to ensure that approaches and methods developed by BfN – for example with regard to landscape planning, species conservation and protected areas – are applied uniformly and comparably nationwide.

These include: Ideas and activities to conserve animal and plant species and their habitats and to safeguard the ecosystem services vital for human survival need a sound scientific basis.

Germany and its constituent states (Länder) have signed a wide range of international nature conservation agreements.

As the German enforcement agency for CITES, BfN grants import and export permits for protected species and products derived from them.

BfN also develops the scientific basis for decisions in this regard and for the ongoing adaptation and refinement of species conservation law in line with changing needs.

The INA additionally conducts training for capacity-building purposes with regard to implementation of the Convention on Biological Diversity and other international commitments.

In 1962 the office was reorganized and became the Federal Centre for Vegetation Ecology, Nature Conservation and Landscape Management (BAVNL).