Biodiversity at the Swiss Open-Air Museum Ballenberg

The Swiss Open-Air Museum Ballenberg is known for its buildings, cottage gardens and cultural landscapes. However, many people are unaware that the museum is home to a wide range of habitats, a great variety of species and numerous breeds of farm animals and varieties of cultivated plants, and that it has great potential to further promote biodiversity on its grounds.

In 2026, Ballenberg will make natural diversity even more visible and tangible. With the annual theme ‘Ballenberg – wildly diverse, the museum invites visitors to discover biodiversity and its connections to the cultural landscape and architectural culture. It shows how nature and humans have been interacting for centuries and how cultivation can promote biodiversity. The Swiss Biodiversity Forum provides the museum with expert support.

A tour with specially marked stations demonstrates, for example, how rare animal breeds help to promote species-rich meadows. House martins, as flying architects, and the fascinating bats are also given a platform. Each station invites visitors to become active themselves and to promote biodiversity within their own means.

On 23 May 2026, the Swiss Open-Air Museum Ballenberg and the Swiss Biodiversity Forum are hosting a Biodiversity Day. Species experts will be out and about on the grounds, trying to spot as many different species as possible. There will be plenty of activities for visitors to join in with and explore for themselves.

The Ballenberg season runs from 9 April to 1 November 2026.