Loss and life, from above.

The Swiss Federal Office of Topography (SwissTopo) has been publishing detailed topographical maps of Switzerland since 1845, updating these almost yearly ever since. Not only are these maps true works of craftsmanship, they allow us to look back at the evolving landscape of the country over a century-and-a-half of social and environmental changes.

I was recently browsing through the 2025 update and was struck by some saddening, and some uplifting natural changes.

Swiss glaciers are one their last legs

In a previous iteration of this blog, I once wrote about my personal connection to many of glaciers of the Bernese Oberland, and how I've watched their retreat over my life. Glaciers have been shrinking in the Alps since the 1850s, but this has been speeding up as a result of human-caused global warming, and seems to have accelerated rapidly since just 2020. Many glaciers familiar to me have entirely lost their accumulation zones - the higher area where they build up snow and ice - signalling the beginning of their end.

Here you can see the Petersgrat Glacier in the Bernese Oberland in 2020. I've long dreamed of skiing this as it's one of the only fully-glaciated ridge lines in the Alps.

And here it is in 2025. Notice the loss of snow coverage and the exposure of more of the glacier's bare ice. The disappearance of snow coverage signifies that less, or possibly no new ice will form on much of the glacier this year. Once a glacier looses its accumulation zone, it will inevitably melt away over the following years.

Other glaciers have already disappeared entirely since 2020. Most of these have been dying for some time, but it's still striking to see them vanish completely.

Here's the Caoagnöö Glacier in Ticino around 2020. You can see that by then, all that was left were a few patches of rock-covered ice.

By 2025, it has melted away.

For reference, this is the Caoagnöö Glacier in the late 1940s.

Forests are regrowing, especially in the Alps

On a more uplifting note, I've been excited to see the growth of forests across Switzerland. Trees don't grow as fast as glaciers melt so there hasn't been a big change in forest cover since 2020, but it's clear that large areas have seen forest regrowth since around the 1960s. This is primarily due to the abandonment of agricultural pastures as certain areas of the country age and depopulate, and due to the increase in the tree-line - the maximum elevation at which trees can grow - because of climate change.

I got interested in this because, on trips to visit friends in Milan, I've often noticed how much more forested the southern side of Alps seems to be than the northern side. The data seem to back this up. Forest regrowth since the 1980s has been most pronounced in Italian-speaking regions of Switzerland, especially in Ticino. My guess is that this is because Ticino's population is amongst the oldest in Switzerland, meaning that there are simply fewer farmers to keep alpine pastures grazed by sheep and cows.

Here's a really neat example of reforestation around the village of Menzonio, most of which has taken place below the treeline and thus has more to do with reduced grazing than climate change.

This is the area sometime around 1950. Notice the darker areas of forest, and the lighter areas of pasture.

Here's the same area in 2025.

On the slopes above Wengen, which are too steep for agriculture, you can see how trees have filled in and moved higher up the mountain as the climate has warmed.

Here's the area around 1960.

Here it is in 2025.

All in all, Switzerland has gained around 590 square kilometres of forest, about the size of Lake Geneva, since the 1980s, according to the Federal Office for Statistics.

My Takeaways

Staring at maps is a fun form of procrastination for me, but I think there a few real lessons here.

1. Many, if not most, Swiss glaciers will be gone within my lifetime, probably by my 50s. I've tried to come to terms with this, but it isn't easy seeing some of the most beautiful natural features vanish before your eyes.

2. Depopulation, and the resulting reduction in agriculture, gives forests room to recover. I am not anti-farming but as the world reaches peak population this century, I expect to see similar scenes of slow but steady reforestation elsewhere in the world, which will be a boost for wildlife and biodiversity in many places.

3. Nature never stands still. While my conception of the Alps is rooted in a vision of a winter wonderland, they will probably soon be much more like Pyrenees or the Apennines, and that will become the new normal for generations to come.