Only 10.8% of Swiss territory is protected, while the average protected area in the European Union is 26.4%, NGO Birdlife Switzerland said in a statementExternal link on Friday. Together with other nature conservation organisations, it is calling on parliament to end to its inaction on the issue.
Birldlife points in particular to proposed legislative changes that are stalled in parliament. The proposed amendments provide, for example, for the networking of protected areas by means of green corridors.
Switzerland is a long way from the international target of 30% protected areas by 2030, Birdlife points out. It says the Alpine country has made no progress in terms of protected areas for more than a decade.
According to the latest Environmental Review of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), Switzerland is among the industrialised countries with the longest red lists of threatened species. More than a third of the species and half of their habitats are threatened or even highly endangered.
In 1998, Switzerland set itself the target of reducing the number of species on its red lists by 1% per year. “No measures were ever taken to achieve this, and the target was quietly abandoned in 2020,” according to Birdlife director Raffael Ayé.
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