Why Franches-Montagnes stands out
Franches-Montagnes is best known for its extensive peat bog systems nestled into a karst limestone plateau, with the Etang de la Gruère standing as one of Switzerland's most famous raised bog and pond landscapes. The region is also strongly associated with the iconic Franches-Montagnes horse, a breed that has shaped the open pasture character of the landscape over centuries of transhumance farming. The mosaic of pasture, forest and wetland on a gently undulating high plateau, drained almost entirely underground through a heavily karstified substrate, gives the area its distinctive combination of cultural and natural heritage value, recognised at the federal level since 1977.
Franches-Montagnes history and protected-area timeline
The Franches-Montagnes landscape has been shaped by long-standing patterns of pastoral farming that date back centuries, with the famous Franches-Montagnes horse breed representing one of the most enduring cultural products of the plateau. The two main ponds of the region, the Etang de la Gruère and the Etang des Royes, were originally built to power mills and sawmills and only later acquired their modern role as natural and scenic landmarks.
The peat bogs of the region have a long exploitation history. From the nineteenth century onward, large parts of the raised bogs were cut for peat and drained for pasture, with trampling by livestock adding further pressure. As a result, most of the high moors on the plateau are now reduced to small remnants or have transitioned to other vegetation types, although the largest surviving peat complexes retain national importance.
Modern legal protection began in the second half of the twentieth century. The Franches-Montagnes landscape was entered in the Federal Inventory of Landscapes and Natural Monuments of National Importance (BLN) in 1977. The military history of the moor at La Chaux-des-Breuleux is closely intertwined with Swiss nature conservation: a plan prepared by the Swiss Army in the 1940s to build a major training ground in the Freiberge, which contributed to the so-called Jura conflict over the political fate of the Bernese Jura, provoked a stronger environmental response in the region. Live-fire exercises of the Swiss Air Force at Chaux des Breuleux ended in 1972, and in 1974 the canton of Bern and the municipality of La Chaux-des-Breuleux placed the peat moor under protection; the canton of Jura followed for the part north of the cantonal border in 1980.
Around 2020 the Swiss Army's ordnance disposal service removed remaining munitions from the area between Tramelan and La Chaux-des-Breuleux. A multi-year revitalisation programme, supported by the federal government, both cantons, and the Fonds Landschaft Schweiz, ran until 2022, and by around 2027 the canton of Jura plans to gradually close drainage ditches in dried-out peat areas east of the Etang de la Gruère and near La Prédame to allow wetland habitats to recover. The nature centre at Les Cerlatez, founded in 1993, has long provided public information on the region's moorlands and was integrated into the regional natural park along the Doubs from 2020 onwards.
Franches-Montagnes landscape and geographic character
The Franches-Montagnes is defined by a gently undulating high plateau that lies, on average, at roughly 1000 metres above sea level between the Montagne du Droit ridge to the south and the deep Doubs valley to the north-west. Unlike the more rugged folded chains further south, the plateau presents a calm, open skyline of rounded hills, shallow depressions and broad pasture horizons that is unusual within the Jura range.
The substrate is dominated by Upper Jurassic limestone, locally covered near Les Genevez by blocks of Nagelfluh conglomerate. Karstification is intense, and the landscape is dotted with sinkholes; the same geological conditions that produce the dry plateau surface also drive the regional hydrology, with most precipitation vanishing underground and only re-emerging far from the plateau itself.
The vegetation structure further shapes the visual character of the area. Tall solitary conifers stand in the middle of wide pastures within a so-called 'Waldweide' tradition of wooded pasture, while compact forest blocks occupy the higher and steeper sections. Two named ponds, the Etang de la Gruère and the Etang des Royes, together with the smaller Etang de Pouleyo, form focal points within the wide open scenery, surrounded by raised bog, fen and wet forest that frame the views. Small hamlets and isolated farmsteads, rather than large villages, are nested among the fields and forests.
Franches-Montagnes ecosystems, habitats, and plant life
Ecologically, the Franches-Montagnes is defined by a tightly interwoven mosaic of forests, pastures and peatlands that has developed in the shallow basins of the limestone plateau since the end of the Ice Age. When the Rhône glacier still reached as far as Tramelan, the conditions for peat formation were first established in the depressions where water could not drain freely through the underlying karst.
Today, the surviving raised bogs are concentrated around the Etang de la Gruère and the Etang des Royes, with other important examples nearby at Bellelay and the Tourbière de La Chaux d'Abel. Where impermeable layers such as loam from the Bärschwil Formation or molasse impede vertical drainage, peat bodies have accumulated over large areas; these habitats are now nationally inventoried and form some of the most significant Raised bog remnants of their kind in Switzerland.
The forests include blueberry-spruce-fir stands on many slopes, scattered remnants of the original beech-fir forests of the Jura that once covered larger areas, and near the Etang de la Gruère a notable relict stand of dwarf birch reflecting former alpine tundra conditions. Bog pine woodlands border some of the peat bogs, creating a particularly diverse transition between forest and open mire.
Franches-Montagnes wildlife and species highlights
The mosaic of woodland, meadow and bog in the Franches-Montagnes supports a wide range of fauna, from common meadow birds such as the meadow pipit to highly specialised bog species. The peat bogs and the surrounding bog pine forests are nationally designated amphibian spawning areas, and the Etang de la Gruère is one of the documented strongholds of the endangered northern crested newt.
Dragonflies such as the large whiteface and other bog-associated species breed in the still-water habitats and surrounding marshes, while the open meadows and scattered veteran trees attract a diversity of butterflies and other insects. The rare and threatened bog fritillary butterfly is closely tied to the remaining undisturbed peatland vegetation.
Larger forest blocks and the wooded pasture provide habitat for typical Jura forest bird species, and the mix of semi-open landscape and extensive forest supports a balanced insect population that in turn sustains bats, small mammals and a healthy bird community. The combination of extensive pasture and minimally disturbed bog habitat is what gives the Franches-Montagnes its strong wildlife value within the Swiss context.
Franches-Montagnes conservation status and protection priorities
Franches-Montagnes is protected at multiple, overlapping levels. The landscape itself has been part of the Federal Inventory of Landscapes and Natural Monuments of National Importance (BLN) since 1977. The Etang de la Gruère is registered in Switzerland's national list of particularly valuable natural habitats under the Emerald Network established by the Bern Convention, and the area around it forms a 120-hectare nature reserve managed jointly by the canton of Jura and Pro Natura.
Other formal reserves within the BLN area include the Réserve naturelle de l'Etang des Royes, the Réserve naturelle de Plain de Saigne and the Réserve naturelle tourbière de La Chaux des Breuleux. The Chaux-des-Breuleux peat moor, which extends across the cantonal boundary into the Bernese Jura, has been under cantonal protection since 1974 (Bern) and 1980 (Jura), and has benefited from a long-term revitalisation programme led jointly by the federal government, both cantons, and the Fonds Landschaft Schweiz.
The BLN protection goals emphasise maintaining the mosaic character of the traditional pasture-and-forest landscape, preserving karst landforms, sustaining the characteristic species and habitats, supporting traditional agricultural use, and safeguarding rural architecture and small landscape features such as hedges and dry-stone walls. Restoration work in the formerly drained peat areas east of the Etang de la Gruère and around La Prédame is intended to allow wetland habitats to regenerate in the coming years.
Franches-Montagnes cultural meaning and human context
Franches-Montagnes is closely tied to a centuries-old pastoral culture of the Jura plateau, marked by transhumance-style dairy farming and, most famously, the breeding of the Franches-Montagnes horse, the last native horse breed of Switzerland. The traditional 'Waldweide' or wooded-pasture system, with its large solitary conifers scattered across open meadows, is one of the most recognisable cultural signatures of the region and is explicitly mentioned in the BLN protection objectives.
The landscape also bears traces of more recent political history. The mid-twentieth-century conflict between the canton of Bern and the francophone Jura communities that ultimately led to the creation of the canton of Jura in 1979 was partly shaped by a Swiss Army plan to build a large weapons training ground in the Freiberge. The public controversy around this plan, and the need to protect the peat moors from further deterioration, helped strengthen the local nature conservation movement and shaped the conservation landscape we see today.
Small hamlets and farmsteads, vernacular rural architecture, dry-stone walls and traditional hedges all remain part of the everyday fabric of the plateau, supporting an identity that ties natural and cultural heritage together across the cantonal boundary between Jura and Bern.
Top sights and standout views in Franches-Montagnes
Franches-Montagnes is remarkable for the close coexistence of nationally protected peat bogs, traditional Jura pastoral farming and a karst high-plateau landscape that straddles the European main watershed underground.
The Etang de la Gruère and its surrounding 120-hectare nature reserve form the single most iconic focal point of the area, complemented by the Etang des Royes and the cross-border Chaux-des-Breuleux peat moor. Beyond ecology, the region is defined by the open, gently rolling plateau scenery, the wooded-pasture landscape with its lone veteran trees, and the enduring presence of the Franches-Montagnes horse, all of which combine natural and cultural significance in a single, nationally valuable landscape.
Best time to visit Franches-Montagnes
Summer is the classic season for visiting the Franches-Montagnes, when the broad pastures are vibrant green, the bog vegetation around the Etang de la Gruère is most accessible on foot, and the higher elevations of the plateau are at their most inviting under long daylight hours.
Late spring and early autumn also offer rewarding conditions, with softer light over the limestone plateau and fewer visitors, while winter transforms the open landscape into a snow-covered expanse that emphasises the contrast between dark conifer blocks and pale pasture. Seasonal character matters less for the ponds and bogs, which are accessible year round, than for the surrounding cultural pastures that change most visibly with the agricultural calendar.
