Switzerland: local custom written into the code

The Swiss rule on collecting mushrooms sits neither in a forest act nor in nature conservation law but in the civil code, at article 699. The placement is telling: this is about the limits of somebody else's property, not about protecting a species.

The text is short. Entering forest and pasture, and appropriating wild berries, mushrooms and the like, is permitted to everyone to the extent customary in the place, unless the competent authority issues individual, closely delimited prohibitions in the interest of cultivation. The second paragraph leaves it to cantonal law to regulate entry onto another's land for hunting and fishing.

It is worth seeing what the phrase about customary extent actually does. It gives no figure, referring instead to whatever counts as normal in the district. The federal legislator is therefore saying: I do not know how much is appropriate in an alpine valley and how much on the plateau, and I do not intend to settle it from Bern. That deferral explains the rest of the Swiss system.

The cantons supply the numbers, each in its own way, and the differences can be large. Grisons closes collecting from the first to the tenth day of every month, sets two kilograms per person per day, forbids collecting in groups of more than three, and requires a cantonal exemption permit before a picking may be passed to third parties. A neighbouring canton may have an entirely different arrangement, because article 699 compels nobody to anything. It supplies only a frame.

The second layer is about health and has nothing to do with property law. Many Swiss communes run an official mushroom inspection, to which the picking is brought sorted by species. The check is free, seasonal, and run by the commune, and its hours are often set around the walk home from the forest.

For a visitor the conclusion is unambiguous. The question "how much may I take in Switzerland" has no answer at national level. It has one at cantonal level, and on a route running along an administrative boundary, at the level of both cantons at once. The civil code says only that collecting is permitted at all, and that the measure is local custom.

The same code, different cantons

Article 699 of the Swiss Civil Code allows everyone to enter forests and pastures and take wild berries and mushrooms to the extent sanctioned by local custom. The principle applies to both private and public forest. “Local” is decisive. In Graubünden, collecting is prohibited from the first through tenth day of every month; on other days the limit is two kilograms, and groups larger than three are prohibited except families. The Canton of Zürich uses the same closed period but a one-kilogram limit; collecting in nature reserves is always prohibited. A lawful plan therefore needs the canton, municipality, protected-area status and current day of the month. The federal baseline creates access; cantonal law supplies the operational quantity and calendar.