The Plant Protection act make provision against the introduction
into Sri Lanka and the spreading therein, of any organism harmful
to, or injurious to, or destructive of plants, and for the
sanitation of plants in Sri Lanka. The organism has been
interpreted in the Act as "Organism included any active, infective,
or dormant stage of life form of an entity characterized as living,
including plants, bacteria, algae, fungi, phytoplasma, mycoplasms,
mycoplasma-like entities, protozoa, vertebrate and invertebrate
animals, as well as entities such as viruses, viroids, plasmids,
phages or any living entity, related thereto, whether natural,
genetically modified, living modified, or otherwise". Similarly
genetically modified organism and living modified organism are
interpreted under the Chapter of INTERPRETATION No 15 as
follows "genetically modified" means an organism derived from
any activity which has involved or resulted in the formation or
derivation of new combinations of heritable material by the
insertion of nucleic acid molecules, produced by whatever means
outside the cell, into any virus, bacterial plasmid, or other
vector system so as to allow their incorporation into a host
organism in which they do not naturally occur but in which they are
capable of continued propagation. "living modified" means an
organism derived or produced by altering or modifying the genetic
material of an organism through the use of biological techniques
such as recombinant DNA technology, molecular biology, cell or
tissue culture, cell fusion, artificial mutagenesis, or through the
use of a vector system such as virus, phage, plasmid but not
through the ways that occur naturally by mating, mutation or
recombination processes.
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