Biodiversity Action Plan 2025: Wolf Missing from the Document
The federal government now admits it without any attempt to sugarcoat: the state of biodiversity in Switzerland is unsatisfactory, half of all habitats and a third of all species are threatened, and losses continue at every level.
And yet the same pattern has followed this diagnosis for years: action plans, programmes, pilot projects.
Now comes the next round: adopted as early as November 2024 and updated on 12 December 2025 with additional measures, the Federal Council has approved the Biodiversity Action Plan Switzerland for the 2025–2030 phase .
This sounds like connectivity, like ecological infrastructure, like a state that has understood that habitats are not created in brochures but on the map.
At the same time, the diagnosis remains stark: in Switzerland, almost half of all habitats are classified as endangered.
And yet a question presents itself that the document elegantly sidesteps: what does this mean for wildlife, hunting and the wolf — that is, for the very field of conflict in which biodiversity policy is decided in practice?
Anyone who searches the new action plan for 'wolf' will find: nothing by name. The plan deliberately remains general, operating at the level of habitats, programmes, pilot approaches and efficiency improvements.
At the same time, the wolf is more prominent in Swiss wildlife policy than almost any other species. The FOEN openly describes the strategic shift: in the winter of 2024/2025, it approved the culling of approximately 125 wolves. By the end of January 2025, 92 wolves had been shot preventively — that is, before any damage had occurred.
The Federal Council brought the revised Hunting Act, including the amended Hunting Ordinance, into force on 1 February 2025. Explicitly cited is the preventive regulation of the wolf population as an instrument for reducing conflict.
This is the imbalance that is journalistically relevant: In the central biodiversity programme, the wolf remains invisible, yet in enforcement it becomes the main topic.
Biodiversity policy rarely fails due to lack of knowledge — it often fails in implementation
Anyone who now says this is 'always the same old story' is touching on a truth. Not because biology or ecology are lacking, but because they too often remain politically inconsequential.
The federal government itself states that the second phase (2025–2030) should address deficits, increase effectiveness and efficiency, close knowledge gaps and test approaches in pilot applications.
All of this is sensible. But as long as enforcement and incentives are not in order, there is a risk that biodiversity becomes a permanent exercise: one documents the loss more thoroughly, manages it more professionally, yet never stops it.
And this is precisely where recreational hunting plays a role, as it sits at the intersection of conservation mandates, utilisation interests, tradition and acceptance politics. The wolf is a litmus test within this field of tension: it forces simultaneous consideration of prevention, coexistence, regulation and biodiversity objectives.
What a federal action plan for wildlife and hunting should be called
If Switzerland truly wants to achieve more by 2030 than the next package of 'measures', clear guardrails are needed. Eight points that would make the difference, particularly regarding the wolf and hunting:
1) The wolf belongs in the biodiversity plan, not only in hunting law
Anyone who markets biodiversity as a systemic task should not exclude the visible conflict. Not to 'romanticise' the wolf, but to make transparent how coexistence, prevention, regulation, herd protection and biodiversity objectives fit together. The BAFU itself states: the wolf is not specifically promoted in Switzerland, but its return must be managed.
The action plan is deliberately broad, but it lays claim to effectiveness and enforcement. That is precisely why it is legitimate to ask how a central area of enforcement (predators, herd protection, regulation) is aligned with biodiversity objectives.
2) Preventive regulation requires measurable criteria and public oversight
If 'preventive' means that shooting occurs before damage is done, then particularly strict, verifiable criteria are required. The FOEN text on the regulatory phase shows how extensively this instrument has already been used. A serious action plan would need to specify: What data basis is necessary? Which alternatives have been implemented? What objectives are to be achieved? What will be independently evaluated?
3) Priority for prevention instead of pressure-valve politics
Hunting law was explicitly revised to reduce conflicts between alpine farming and wolves.
Anyone who wants to reduce conflicts must make prevention sufficiently binding that 'culling as the first debate' never becomes the default. Otherwise, regulation becomes a political pressure valve, not a last resort.
4) Tranquility, habitat, connectivity: Without these, every shot is merely treating symptoms
The new action plan mentions connectivity and measures along transport corridors. For wildlife, this must mean concretely: more wildlife rest zones, better corridors, less fragmentation. Where habitat is lacking, conflicts are produced, and hunting is misused as a repair service.
5) Professionalisation in wildlife management instead of militia logic
In many cantons, Switzerland maintains a system in which hobby hunting is strongly organized around leasehold arrangements, militia logic, and tradition. At the same time, tasks such as tracking wounded animals, animal welfare enforcement, and interventions involving injured animals are explicitly also assigned to wildlife wardens.
If biodiversity is a priority, wildlife management must be professionalised: wildlife wardens instead of hobby hunters, with clear mandates, training, oversight, transparency, and a culture that places conservation above recreational interests.
6) Disclose conflicts of interest: Who decides on culls and why?
With wolves, pressure is high, emotions run high, and the lobby is vocal. For precisely this reason, robust governance is needed: clear roles, published justifications, traceable data, and independent oversight.
7) Uniform standards instead of a cantonal patchwork
Preventive regulation operates through cantonal applications and federal review. The system invites inequality, depending on canton, politics, and local hunting culture. An action plan that promises effectiveness must establish minimum standards — otherwise biodiversity remains subject to the vagaries of jurisdictional chance.
8) Success criteria for 2030 that do not consist of public relations
'More measures' is not a goal. Goals are: more functioning habitats, better connectivity, fewer endangered habitat types, more stable populations, fewer contentious interventions. The federal government itself emphasises efficiency, evaluation, and knowledge gaps. It must therefore also define by what criteria it will be measured, and what happens if it falls short.
Biodiversity requires courage, not just management
The new action plan can serve as an important framework. But as long as the wolf is excluded from the biodiversity plan while simultaneously being subject to massive regulation through hunting instruments, a central message remains contradictory: biodiversity as the foundation of life on one hand, conflict management by culling on the other.
Those who are serious must take the step that is politically uncomfortable: wildlife management as a core state responsibility and not as a sideshow of recreational hunting. Professionalism through game wardens, clear rules, transparent data, consistent prevention. Only then does biodiversity stand a chance of being more than another phase on paper by 2030.
