Federal Act
on the Protection of Nature and Cultural Heritage
(NCHA)¹

The aim of this Act, sub­ject to the au­thor­ity of the Con­fed­er­a­tion un­der Art­icle 78 para­graphs 2–5 of the Fed­er­al Con­sti­tu­tion, is:⁷

a.

to care­fully man­age and pro­tect her­it­age land­scapes and sites of loc­al char­ac­ter, his­tor­ic­al sites, and the coun­try’s nat­ur­al and cul­tur­al monu­ments, and to pro­mote their pre­ser­va­tion and up­keep;

b.

to sup­port the can­tons in ful­filling their tasks in the fields of nature pro­tec­tion, cul­tur­al her­it­age pro­tec­tion and monu­ment pre­ser­va­tion, and to en­sure co­oper­a­tion with them;

c.

to sup­port the en­deav­ours of or­gan­isa­tions act­ive in the fields of nature pro­tec­tion, cul­tur­al her­it­age pro­tec­tion or monu­ment pre­ser­va­tion;

d.⁸

to pro­tect in­di­gen­ous flora and fauna, their bio­lo­gic­al di­versity and their nat­ur­al hab­it­ats;

d^bis.⁹

to pro­mote the con­ser­va­tion of bio­lo­gic­al di­versity and the sus­tain­able use of its com­pon­ents through the fair and equit­able shar­ing of be­ne­fits arising from ge­net­ic re­sources;

e.¹⁰

to pro­mote sci­ence and re­search and the edu­ca­tion and train­ing of ex­perts in the fields of nature pro­tec­tion, cul­tur­al her­it­age pro­tec­tion and monu­ment pre­ser­va­tion.