From Tasmania to the Scottish Highlands the story is the same. There is no local control over this technology and even the voices of local representatives are being ignored as this technology is globally imposed.
1. So much for care! - Australasian Business Intelligence
2. Anger as minister misses GM summit - The Scotsman
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So much for care!
Wayne Crawford
ABIX: Australasian Business Intelligence March 17, 2001
ABSTRACT: Tasmanians are justified in being concerned over the poorly supervised introduction of genetic engineering (GE) in Tasmania. Tasmanians were led to believe that small, experimental crops were being grown in Tasmania.
However, research by the Tasmanian Greens has revealed that large, commercial GE crops were being grown in Tasmania. The Tasmanian Greens' sole politician has pressured the Tasmanian Government into protecting Tasmania's status as being environmentally wholesome. In 2000, the Tasmanian Government imposed a moratorium on GE crops in Tasmania. In 2001, the Tasmanian Government discovered that the multinational agricultural businesses, Monsanto and Aventis had operated 58 uncontained canola trials. At 11 of these sites, GE canola growth has contaminated adjacent farms
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2. Anger as minister misses GM summit
John Ross
Scotsman, 17 March 2001
ANTI-GM activists yesterday condemned Ross Finnie, the rural affairs minister, for avoiding a meeting over plans for further farm trials in the Highlands. The statutory consultation period to discuss two new applications for trials ended yesterday but no public information meetings have been arranged because of the foot-and-mouth restrictions.
Instead, Mr Finnie took part in a phone-in with an Inverness-based radio station - from a studio in Greenock. Local groups, backed by the Highlands and Islands GM Concern group, held meetings this week to discuss the issue but no-one from the executive attended.
Mr Finnie told listeners he hoped to get to the Highlands soon: "I will make every effort to get there but I hope people understand I have huge competition on my time. The GM debate is just as serious, I recognise that. I am not running away. I have statutory obligations to fulfil on this matter and I have a job to do to ensure we do not take decisions which are prejudicial either to the environment to public health."
Andrew Thompson, campaign co-ordinator for the GM concern group, said: "I understand the pressures the minister is under.
"We thought long and hard about holding our own meetings but, given that there are no confirmed or suspect cases in the Highlands, these meetings are appropriate.
"Given that Mr Finnie does not live in a rural constituency it would have been nice if he had come. He is avoiding the big issue in terms of these trials being, in effect, a Trojan horse. They say it is about looking at the effects of biodiversity but by the time that effect comes to light the damage will have been done. So the trial in itself is a threat, it is a danger."
Earlier Mr Finnie defended the approvals given to existing trials and proposals for further farm trials. "My advisors are asked if any of these trials will pose any risk to health or the environment. If they come to that conclusion, I will not grant any further trials but I have to do so on sound science."
Two farms at Auldearn, near Nairn, and Smithton, near Inverness, have applied to hold GM trials this spring, following a controversial crop trial taking place across the Moray Firth in the Black Isle.