Second intervention from NGOs
in support of a ban on GE trees
May 26 - 2008
Thank you madam chair
I speak on behalf of Global Forest
Coalition, Global Justice Ecology Project and the STOP GE Trees Campaign,
which includes 137 organizations in 34 countries all over the world-including
public interest scientists, foresters, geneticists and many in the
very communities threatened by the release of genetically engineered
trees.
We would like to speak to paragraph
1. (r). We want to strongly support the position of the African Group
with regard to paragraph (r) in support of the suspension of any release
of GE trees. This is the only decision that makes sense due to the
unassessed, irreversible and potentially disastrous impacts of GE
trees on forest biological diversity, forest dependent and indigenous
peoples and women, soils, water and the climate. Since MOP has referred
this
issue to an AHTEG and the risks are currently unknown but potentially
catastrophic, this body is clearly mandated to adopt the first paragraph
and suspend future plantings of GE trees, which has also been the
unified position of NGOs and IPOs present here.
The enhanced destruction of forests
that would result from the commercialization of GE trees will take
a very high toll, not only on wildlife and biodiversity, but on forest-dependent
and indigenous communities and women.
While we are speaking in support
of the first paragraph 1r, we support the following amendment: the
beginning of the paragraph should be changed to refer to the Cartegena
Protocol on Biosafety," which specifically deals with issues
of genetic engineering. This is
also extremely important since the Precautionary approach under principle
15 of the Rio Declaration is Significantly weaker than precaution
as set out under the Cartegena Protocol. As any reference to precaution
under Rio would seriously undermine the precautionary approach, it
is critical that this reference to Rio be removed from all parts of
the text.
If COP-9 falls short of suspending
the release of GE trees, by COP-10 it may be too late. By then, there
could well be large-scale releases of GE trees, which would likely
be already causing many of the serious and irreversible impacts of
which we have previously spoken. Parties that support the rights of
indigenous peoples and local communities, and commit to biodiversity
protection, cannot simultaneously allow the release of GE trees.
Anne Petermann - Co-Director
Global Justice Ecology Project
globalecology@gmavt.net
http://www.globaljusticeecology.org
