This project was made in the context of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which was adopted by all the state members of the United Nations in 2015. The SDGs were established in order to fight poverty, protect the planet and to provide solutions in order to ensure peace and propsperity for all people (UNDP, 2022). In total, 17 goals and 169 targets were defined and developed in recognition that the improvement of one area affects another positively with the social, economic and environmental sustainability being in balance. The ultimate aim is that all UN members will have achieved these goals by the year 2030 (UN, 2022).
The individual goals of the SDGs are displayed in the figure below:

It is widely known that forests are important providers of a wide variety of ecosystem services for human society. Forests are responsible for maintaining and supporting biodiversity, preventing land degradation and are beneficial for economic development. Additionally, forests provide humans protection against natural hazards, such as rockslides or avalanches (Moos, Guisan, Randin & Lischke, 2021). Forests are also vital for climate change mitigation as they play a key role in the sequestration and storing of carbon, especially now, with the increased carbon emissions caused by humans (Beedlow et al., 2004).
However, due to the ongoing climate change, these ecosystem services are prone to significant changes (Moos et al., 2021). Thus, it is important to preserve a healthy forest ecosystem. In order to achieve this, the UN established the Sustainable Development Goal 15 in 2015, which aims to "protect, restore and promote sustainable us of terrestral ecosystems". Furthermore, it seeks to "manage forests sustainably, combat desertification, and halt and reverse land degradation and halt biodiversity loss" (UN, 2022).

Forest protection has always played a huge part in Switzerland, dating back to the 14th century (Schmithüsen & Zimmermann, 1999). However, with timber being the only ressource for building material and fuel, forest usage was unsustainable up to the 19th century. During the 19th century, increasing amount of flood incidents occured, which led to the adoption of the federal forest act in 1876, with the intention to preserve forest areas in mountaineous area. On the one hand, the federal forest act was meant for protective measures against natural calamities and on the other hand, for reforestation purposes. It was not until 1902 where the federal forest act was extended for all forests in Switzerland (Stöckli, 2002).
This federal act had been in force until the newly revised federal forest law of 1991 was introduced and later adopted in 1993. Besides its considerable number of partial revisions concerning financial mechanisms, the basic structure of the federal forest act from 1902 were retained. In comparison to the federal forest act of 1902, the forest law of 1991 recognizes the multi-functionality of forests. This includes the integration of the aspect of nature and landscape protection of forestry with the inclusion of economic and social aspects, which in 1902 has not been made fully explicit (von Arb & Zimmermann, 2004). Despite there being a strong desire for reforestation and forest protection, there are cases, which are eligible to receive an exemption permit for deforestation. However, such cases must not be hazardous for the environment and must align with the spatial planing laws and guidelines. But most importantly, the need to carry out the case must overweigh the interest of preserving the forest (Art. 5 Abs. 2 WaG).
Today, forests inhibit approximately 32% of the area in Switzerland, of which 49% are protected (BAFU, 2022).

In context with the beforementioned topic and with the aid of our interactive maps, the following research questions are to be answered with this project:

• How did the forest area / density change in Switzerland from 1975 - 2020?


• How did the Swiss federal forest law from 1991 influence the forest area / density?