Traditionally, German law used to draw clear borderlines between water law and nature protection law: On the Federal level, the Federal Nature Protection Act aimed at protecting wildlife and nature while the Federal Water Resources Act dealt with the management and use of water as a resource. In 2000, however, the European Water Framework Directive recognized that „water, due to its ecological and social value is more than a resource“, and obliged Member States to attain a good ecological status of all water. With its new approach, the Water Framework Directive became the starting point of a comprehensive ecologization of German water law. Nevertheless, while the newly created links between water management and nature protection are to be welcomed, both fields of law have to preserve their respective rationalities.