Federal Act on Forest
(Forest Act, ForA)

¹ For all de­for­est­a­tion, com­pens­a­tion in kind must be provided in the same re­gion and with spe­cies that are pre­dom­in­antly suited to the loc­a­tion.

² Meas­ures may be im­ple­men­ted for the be­ne­fit of nature and land­scape con­ser­va­tion in­stead of com­pens­a­tion in kind:

a.

in areas with in­creas­ing forest area;

b.

in oth­er areas by way of ex­cep­tion in or­der to con­serve ar­able land and areas of eco­lo­gic­al or land­scape value.

³ Com­pens­a­tion for de­for­est­a­tion may be dis­pensed with in the case of de­for­est­a­tion:

a.

of areas that have grown in the last 30 years in or­der to re­claim ar­able land;

b.

to guar­an­tee flood pro­tec­tion and to re­hab­il­it­ate wa­ters;

c.

for the pre­ser­va­tion and im­prove­ment of bi­otopes in ac­cord­ance with Art­icles 18a and 18b para­graph 1 of the Fed­er­al Act of 1 Ju­ly 1966⁸ on the Pro­tec­tion of Nature and Cul­tur­al Her­it­age.

⁴ If ar­able land that has been re­claimed in ac­cord­ance with para­graph 3 let­ter is giv­en a dif­fer­ent use with­in 30 years, the com­pens­a­tion for de­for­est­a­tion must be provided ret­ro­spect­ively.