Ordinance
on the Handling of Organisms in the Environment
(Release Ordinance, RO)

¹ In this Or­din­ance:

a.

or­gan­isms means cel­lu­lar or non-cel­lu­lar bio­lo­gic­al en­tit­ies cap­able of rep­lic­a­tion or of trans­fer­ring ge­net­ic ma­ter­i­al. Mix­tures and art­icles and products con­tain­ing such en­tit­ies are also re­garded as or­gan­isms;

b.¹³mi­croor­gan­isms means mi­cro­bi­o­lo­gic­al en­tit­ies, in par­tic­u­lar bac­teria, al­gae, fungi, pro­to­zoa, vir­uses and viroids; cell cul­tures, para­sites, pri­ons and bio­lo­gic­ally act­ive ge­net­ic ma­ter­i­al are also re­garded as mi­croor­gan­isms;

c.

small in­ver­teb­rates meansarth­ro­pods, an­nelids, nem­at­odes and flat­worms;

d.

ge­net­ic­ally mod­i­fied or­gan­isms means or­gan­isms in which the ge­net­ic ma­ter­i­al has been altered by meth­ods of gene tech­no­logy in ac­cord­ance with An­nex 1 in a way that does not oc­cur un­der nat­ur­al con­di­tions by cross­ing or nat­ur­al re­com­bin­a­tion, as well as patho­gen­ic or ali­en or­gan­isms that have also been ge­net­ic­ally mod­i­fied;

e.¹⁴

patho­gen­ic or­gan­isms means or­gan­isms that can cause dis­eases in hu­man be­ings, live­stock and use­ful plants, in wild flora or fauna or oth­er or­gan­isms, as well as ali­en or­gan­isms that are also patho­gen­ic;

f.¹⁵

ali­en or­gan­isms means or­gan­isms of a spe­cies, sub-spe­cies or lower taxo­nom­ic level that:

1.

do not nat­ur­ally oc­cur in Switzer­land or in oth­er EFTA and EU mem­ber states (not in­clud­ing over­seas areas), and

2.

have not un­der­gone se­lec­tion for use in ag­ri­cul­ture or hor­ti­cul­tur­al pro­duc­tion to such an ex­tent that their vi­ab­il­ity in the wild is re­duced;

g.¹⁶

…

h.

in­vas­ive ali­en or­gan­isms means ali­en or­gan­isms of which it is known or must be as­sumed that they will spread in Switzer­land and could achieve such a high pop­u­la­tion dens­ity that bio­lo­gic­al di­versity or its sus­tain­able use could be harmed or hu­man be­ings, an­im­als and the en­vir­on­ment could be en­dangered;

i.

hand­ling of or­gan­isms in the en­vir­on­mentmeans any de­lib­er­ate activ­ity us­ing or­gan­isms that takes place out­side a con­tained sys­tem, in par­tic­u­lar cul­tur­ing, pro­cessing, mul­ti­plic­a­tion, modi­fic­a­tion, ex­per­i­ment­al re­lease, mar­ket­ing, trans­port, stor­age or dis­pos­al;

j.

dir­ect hand­ling of or­gan­isms in the en­vir­on­ment means hand­ling or­gan­isms in the en­vir­on­ment, not in­clud­ing the hand­ling of thera­peut­ic products, food­stuffs and an­im­al feed­stuffs;

k.

mar­ket­ing means the trans­fer of or­gan­isms to third parties in Switzer­land for use in the en­vir­on­ment, in par­tic­u­lar by sale, ex­change, giv­ing as a gift, rent­ing, lend­ing or send­ing on ap­prov­al, as well as their im­port for the use in the en­vir­on­ment.

2 Trans­fer of or­gan­isms in or­der to carry out an ex­per­i­ment­al re­lease does not count as mar­ket­ing.