Ordinance
on the Protection of Nature and Cultural Heritage
(NCHO)

¹ Un­au­thor­ized pick­ing, dig­ging up, up­root­ing, re­mov­al, of­fer­ing for sale, sale, pur­chase or de­struc­tion, par­tic­u­larly as a res­ult of tech­nic­al in­ter­ven­tions, of spe­cies of wild plants lis­ted in An­nex 2 is pro­hib­ited.

² In ad­di­tion to the spe­cies cited in the Fed­er­al Act of 20 June 1986⁴⁸ on Hunt­ing and the Pro­tec­tion of Wild Mam­mals and Birds, the spe­cies of wild an­im­als lis­ted in An­nex 3 shall be con­sidered to be pro­tec­ted. It is pro­hib­ited:

a.

to kill, in­jure or cap­ture an­im­als of these spe­cies, or to dam­age, des­troy or re­move their eggs, lar­vae, pupae, nests or breed­ing grounds;

b.

to carry, dis­patch, of­fer for sale, ex­port, en­trust to oth­ers, pur­chase, or take cus­tody of an­im­als of these spe­cies, liv­ing or dead, in­clud­ing their eggs, lar­vae, pupae or nests, or to be party to such ac­tions.

³ The com­pet­ent au­thor­ity may grant ex­cep­tion­al ap­provals in ad­di­tion to those spe­cified in Art­icle 22 para­graph 1 NCHA:

a.

if this serves to pre­serve bio­lo­gic­al di­versity;

b.

for tech­nic­al in­ter­ven­tions per­tain­ing to a spe­cif­ic site and that meet an over­rid­ing need. The per­son re­spons­ible shall be ob­liged to take the best pos­sible pro­tec­tion meas­ures, or fail­ing that, ap­pro­pri­ate com­pens­a­tion meas­ures.

⁴ The can­tons shall make ar­range­ments for ap­pro­pri­ate pro­tec­tion of the an­im­al and plant spe­cies lis­ted in An­nex 4 after con­sulta­tion with the FOEN.⁴⁹

⁵ Any­one in­fringes the pro­vi­sions of para­graphs 1 and 2 is li­able to the pen­al­ties un­der Art­icle 24a NCHA.⁵⁰