Due to the German Constitution the Länder and their municipalities are obliged to protect the natural resources as well as animals. The protection of nature, landscape and water bodies is a compulsory task of the Länder which have to fulfil it on their own responsibility. Länder and municipalities require an appropriate fiscal distribution of public revenues, that need to acknowledge public functions arising from environmental protection and nature conservation. With its provisions on fiscal equalisation, the execution of public functions by the Länder on federal commision, the federal admisistration and joint tasks, the German Constitution contains different possibilities for considering ecological public functions in intergovernmental fiscal relations, which will be discussed in the paper.