An alliance of 30 organizations calls on the Federal Council to advocate a global moratorium on the release of gene drive organisms (GDO) at the UN Biodiversity Conference. Switzerland's negotiating mandate, which the Federal Council and the administration are currently working on, is setting the course for the conference. A moratorium on gene drives is imperative to protect biodiversity and finally put agriculture on an ecological path. Rethinking is the order of the day - the Corona crisis shows that once again.

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Gene Drives: Destructive and uncontrollable

Gene drives are the most dangerous application of the new genetic engineering processes to date, because they can be used to bypass the laws of biological inheritance. The genetic chain reaction that the CRISPR / Cas gene scissors use was developed to genetically modify natural populations. The application should deliberately not be limited to the laboratory or the field, but should change or even eradicate naturally occurring species. Gene drives are invasive and irreversible, but their effectiveness is questionable and has not been verified. The risks of technology for people and the environment are still largely unexplored today. Given their aggressiveness and enormous range of effects, the consequences of a release could be devastating for biodiversity.