Switzerland Today
Dear Swiss Abroad,
this morning a sign at the checkout of a bakery at the Bern railway station immediately caught my eye: 'Only cashless payment here', it said.
Not that I wanted to pay with cash. I paid with my phone because I didn't even have my purse with me. But that's rather rare in Switzerland, because good old cash is still very popular, as a study shows.
Also in today's briefing: criticism of Switzerland's wolf policy, the global decline in greenwashing and the return of music to indigenous peoples in Brazil.
Happy reading!
Switzerland is being criticized for its current wolf policy.
The Bern Convention Office is concerned about the preventive shooting of wolves in Switzerland. The Bern Convention is an international agreement on the conservation of European wildlife that has been ratified by Switzerland. The office responsible for implementing the convention criticised Switzerland because the Federal Council had authorised the preventive culling of up to 12 wolf packs. This decision was deemed “arbitrary”.
Context: In December 2023, wolf protection was downgraded in Switzerland. According to the amended Hunting Ordinance, wolves may be shot preventively, and entire packs may also be shot in justified cases. At the end of 2023, around 32 wolf packs lived in Switzerland. Between December 1 of last year and January 31, 2024 alone, around 50 animals were shot preventively.
The “CHWolf” association filed a complaint with the Bern Convention against the Federal Council’s decision. The Bern Convention Office dealt with the case in September and has now informed the parties to the dispute. In its published letter, the Office states that only serious damage can justify the shooting of wolves. It also states that the office is concerned about allegedly inaccurate monitoring of the damage caused by wolves and about alleged manipulation of data to justify further shooting.
- More details on RTSExternal link.
Fewer false promises: The number of greenwashing cases has fallen worldwide – but not in Switzerland.
Swiss reputation analysis firm “RepRisk” took a close look at companies’ environmental claims around the world: more than 2,000 were found to be guilty of greenwashing last year, according to the study. This means that the companies were involved in deforestation, oil spills or the contamination of drinking water. And they also made misleading statements on the subject.
However, for the first time in six years, the number of greenwashing cases worldwide has fallen – by 12%, as the data analysts report. Companies have become more cautious with their promises. This does not mean that there is less environmental damage, but fewer false promises are being made.
The regional differences highlighted in the report are interesting. In the EU and also in the UK, greenwashing has decreased, while in the US there has been a slight increase. However, in none of the markets examined have greenwashing incidents increased as much as in Switzerland.
One reasons is that Switzerland has a significant financial sector. According to the report, banks and insurance companies are particularly susceptible to accusations of greenwashing, as they often finance industries that are harmful to the environment. Secondly, RepRisk points out that the increase in Switzerland started from a comparatively low level. The greenwashing cases measured are also not as serious as in other countries.
- More details on SRFExternal link
- The full report by RepRiskExternal link
Indigenous peoples in Brazil get their music back from Switzerland.
Over forty years ago, Swiss ethnologists made audio recordings in the Brazilian Amazon region. “Who owns these songs?,” asks my colleague Janine Gloor in her article. The indigenous people understand copyright differently from the globalised world: “Whoever invents or interprets a song is not the author and therefore not the sole owner of the song.” The creators of indigenous music are animal and plant spirits, but they can also be mountains and rivers.
“Recordings themselves are often regarded as ways of existing, i.e. beings, which is why the recordings have to be resocialised,” says Professor Matthias Lewy from the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts. This debate led the musicologist to his current project: the repatriation of music recordings of the indigenous Aparai and Wayana tribes from Geneva to Brazil.
The holistic approach of the Brazilian-Swiss project is unique in the world. The restitution of intangible cultural heritage is nothing new in itself. What is fundamentally different about Lewy’s project is that the music recordings are to be resocialized in their original environment. But what does it mean to resocialize music? Specifically, it means, among other things, working with the indigenous population to clarify who is allowed to listen to and use the music, when, where and for what purpose.
- Here is the article on SWI swissinfo.ch in German.
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When was the last time you paid with cash? In Switzerland, “real money” is still popular.
A study by the Boston Consulting Group shows that people in Switzerland still rely heavily on cash. Worldwide, however, the trend is moving in a different direction, as Finews.ch writes.
The financial portal summarises the most important findings of the study. In Europe, the most frequent electronic payments are made in Norway (815 transactions per year and person), Luxembourg (753), Ireland (705), Denmark (675) and the Netherlands (621). With an average of 405 transactions per year, Switzerland is in the bottom third compared to 16 other European countries in terms of the number of e-transactions per capita.
Switzerland is followed by just six countries with fewer transactions: Portugal (362), Germany (304), Austria (300), Spain (288), Malta (243) and Italy (194). In Switzerland, however, digital payments are on the rise: up nine percent on the previous year.
- A summary on Finews.chExternal link
- The full report hereExternal link
Picture of the day
The 33rd edition of Terre des Hommes’ March of Hope took place yesterday in Geneva. The focus of Switzerland’s largest solidarity event was on the West African country of Mali. About 7,000 people, including more than 2,500 children, took part in the march. The aim of the march was to raise money for the organisation’s education projects in Mali and the rest of West Africa.
Adapted from German by DeepL/ac
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