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

¹ In hab­it­ats and land­scapes that are par­tic­u­larly sens­it­ive or worthy of pro­tec­tion, the dir­ect hand­ling of ge­net­ic­ally mod­i­fied or­gan­isms is per­miss­ible only if it serves to pre­vent or elim­in­ate haz­ards to hu­man be­ings, an­im­als, the en­vir­on­ment, bio­lo­gic­al di­versity or the sus­tain­able use there­of, or impair­ments to the same. For areas in ac­cord­ance with para­graph 2 let­ters a, e and f, de­vi­at­ing pro­vi­sions in the ap­plic­able pro­tec­tion reg­u­la­tions are re­served.

2 Hab­it­ats and land­scapes that are par­tic­u­larly sens­it­ive or worthy of pro­tec­tion are:

a.

areas that are des­ig­nated nature re­serves, on the basis of fed­er­al or can­ton­al law;

b.

sur­face wa­ters and a strip 3 m wide along or around them;

c.¹⁹

sub­ter­ranean wa­ters and catch­ment areas S1 and, for mi­croor­gan­isms, catch­ment areas S2 und S_h of ground­wa­ter pro­tec­tion zones;

d.

forests;

e.

pro­tec­ted areas in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 11 of the Hunt­ing Act of 20 June 1986²⁰;

f.

areas un­der land­scape pro­tec­tion in ac­cord­ance with fed­er­al or can­ton­al law.