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

¹ The hand­ling of ali­en or­gan­isms in the en­vir­on­ment must be car­ried out in such a man­ner that it neither en­dangers hu­man be­ings, an­im­als or the en­vir­on­ment nor harms bio­lo­gic­al di­versity or the sus­tain­able use there­of, and in par­tic­u­lar so that:

a.

the health of hu­man be­ings and an­im­als can­not be en­dangered, in par­tic­u­lar not by tox­ic or al­ler­gen­ic sub­stances;

b.

the or­gan­isms can­not spread or mul­tiply in an un­con­trolled way in the en­vir­on­ment;

c.

pop­u­la­tions of pro­tec­ted or­gan­isms are not harmed, in par­tic­u­lar those in­cluded in the Red Lists, or or­gan­isms that are im­port­ant for the eco­sys­tem in ques­tion, in par­tic­u­lar those that are im­port­ant for the growth and re­pro­duc­tion of plants;

d.

no spe­cies of non-tar­get or­gan­isms spe­cies can be en­dangered;

e.

the ma­ter­i­al bal­ance of the en­vir­on­ment is not severely or per­man­ently harmed;

f.

im­port­ant func­tions of the eco­sys­tem in ques­tion, in par­tic­u­lar the fer­til­ity of the soil, are not severely or per­man­ently harmed.

² In­vas­ive ali­en or­gan­isms in ac­cord­ance with An­nex 2.1 may not be handled dir­ectly in the en­vir­on­ment, oth­er than in the case of meas­ures to con­trol them. The FOEN may in ex­cep­tion­al cases grant au­thor­isa­tion for dir­ect hand­ling in the en­vir­on­ment if the ap­plic­ant can prove that he or she has taken all the meas­ures re­quired to ob­serve para­graph 1.³⁰

^2bis In­vas­ive ali­en or­gan­isms in ac­cord­ance with An­nex 2.2 may not be put in­to cir­cu­la­tion for dir­ect hand­ling in the en­vir­on­ment.³¹

³ Soil that has been re­moved that is con­tam­in­ated with in­vas­ive ali­en or­gan­isms in ac­cord­ance with An­nex 2.1 must be used only at the place of ex­cav­a­tion or dis­posed of so as to pre­vent the spread of such or­gan­isms.³²

⁴ The pro­vi­sions in the le­gis­la­tion on forests, hunt­ing and fish­ing are re­served.³³