Responsible for nature conservation and the implementation of the Nature Conservation Act of the Free State of Thuringia are basically the counties and independent cities as lower nature conservation authorities (UNB).

The Thuringian State Office for the Environment, Mining and Nature Conservation (TLUBN), as the upper nature conservation authority, designates nature conservation and landscape protection areas and nature parks and is responsible for granting exemptions from prohibitions in nature conservation areas and in core and maintenance zones of biosphere reserves and from prohibitions in the Green Belt National Natural Monument and the Hainich National Park.

It approves subsidies from the NALAP subsidy program as well as according to the wolf/lynx subsidy directive and the sheep-goat premium.

As a nature conservation authority, the TLUBN is responsible, in cooperation with the universities, for the further education and training of official and voluntary nature conservation staff, and it creates the technical and informational prerequisites for the Thuringian nature conservation administration. The collection of basic data and the development of state-wide concepts for species protection, biotope and area protection, landscape planning and maintenance, as well as environmental data provision and environmental education are all carried out under one roof.

The TLUBN is the point of contact for cross-county information on nature conservation and exercises technical supervision over the UNB`n.