Dr Elsa Nickel has been a member of EuroNatur board since May 2024 and has brought with her a wealth of political nature conservation experience. Elsa Nickel has worked in a district office, two regional councils in Baden-Württemberg and the Ministry of the Environment in Stuttgart. During this time that she became acquainted with the EuroNatur Foundation and was instantly impressed by their science-based commitment to Europe's natural heritage.
From 2005 to 2018, Elsa Nickel worked first as a subsidiary department head and then as a department head at the Federal Ministry for the Environment. Among other things, she worked to strengthen the Natura 2000 network. She always strived to maintain a European perspective: "We need to think about nature conservation in Europe as a whole and support each other wherever we can. Well-managed nature conservation from Brussels is crucial if we want to overcome the biodiversity and climate crises."
Her passions are for species-rich cultural landscapes on the one hand, and for the last primary forests on our continent and other natural habitats on the other. Dr Elsa Nickel was involved in the listing of the UNESCO World Heritage Site "Ancient and Primeval Beech Forests of the Carpathians and Other Regions of Europe" in Germany and the trilateral World Heritage Site "Wadden Sea". What has inspired her throughout her work at various political levels has been the many like-minded people around the world. “It's important not to always see the glass half full, but to appreciate every drop that is added.”