Throughout his work, Sebald engages intensively with ecological issues which this essay examines, using the theories of Ecocriticism and Cultural and Literary Animal Studies. Two aspects of Sebald’s concept of ‘nature’ are particularly important. First, the notion of ‘nature’ in his writings proves inherently contradictory: nature is at both a self-destructive force and a precious good, subject to human destruction. Therefore, humans appear sometimes as helpless victims of the forces of nature, and sometimes as ruthless destroyers of nature. Second, in Sebald’s concept of ‘nature’ , culture and nature do not constitute opposites. Instead, man is not seen as a counterpart of nature, but as an integral part of it, as a product of a nature through which it accomplishes its self-destruction. The destruction of nature is accordingly understood as an interplay of different actors. Non-human nature (plants and animals as well as landscapes) are perceived as actors in a system in which each element contributes to the self-destruction of earth, connecting man, animals and natural world by their shared suffering.