The Federal Council is scrapping the CHF 25 million a year that Parliament voted to help forests adapt to climate change, despite two clear parliamentary decisions.
The cut takes effect from next year and forms part of a wider savings package aimed at respecting the debt brake.
Parliament had already backed the programme twice to plant heat-resistant trees. Spruce mortality from drought has jumped tenfold between 2018 and 2022, and Switzerland now records more than 100 forest fires a year.
Cantons and MPs are calling the decision politically incomprehensible, and the question will return to Parliament during the winter budget debate.
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