This refers to Denmark's Nature Protection Act § 3, which provides general legal protection for certain habitat types, including wetlands, ponds, and meadows above a certain size. This long-standing regulation has been crucial in maintaining hundreds of thousands of small biotopes within the agricultural landscape without direct subsidy payments.

See also: See Meltofte, H. 1992: Probably the best wetland protection in the World! – IWRB News 8: 12, and similar papers on other biota.