Nature protection and biodiversity - Why care? (Switzerland)

Switzerland is one of the countries in Europa with the greatest biodiversity at a local scale. This is mainly due to large altitudinal differences and the complex relief. The diversity of flowering plants and associated species rose steadily until the 19th century, thanks in part to the diversity of traditional land-use practices, reaching over 50 000 species of plants, animals, fungi and others and a broad variety of habitats.

At the same time, a particularly high genetic diversity of cultivated and domesticated species, in numerous local breeds and races, developed as a consequence of the many small-scale differences among habitats in Switzerland and topographical and cultural differences on a larger scale.

During the 20th century, these trends reversed into a substantial decline of biodiversity, especially in the most densely populated areas of the Central Plateau (Mittelland) region. Today, this decline is increasingly also affecting the Alpine region. Paradoxically, the trend reversal is caused in part by intensive agriculture yet in part also by abandonment of land use, as well as by the destruction and fragmentation of biotopes.

http://www.biodiversity.ch/e/about_biodiversity/biodiversity_in_switzerland/