EXCERPT: The protesters mounted a march on the opening of the meeting at the United Nations building Tuesday, deriding the forum as an attempt by rich countries to force their technology on the developing world.
"They are more keen to protect the corporations and their investments while asking the countries of the South to accept the violation of the laws of nature and religious ethics in return for GM crops"
About 30 demonstrators, including villagers from Thailand's provinces, dumped garbage bins full of genetically modified papayas, tomatoes and corn on the steps of the UN building.
1. BANGKOK conference protest
2. THAI FARMERS, NGOS PROTEST GMO FOOD AT OECD
3. Politics & Profits Drive Biotech Promo - NOT Science
4. NGO Statement for the International Conference New Biotechnology Foods and Crops: Science, Safety and Society. Bangkok, 10-12 July 2001
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1. BANGKOK conference protest
British Deputy PM Defends Genetically Modified Crops [shortened]
Agence France-Presse
July 10, 2001
BANGKOK, July 10 (AFP) - Britain's Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott Tuesday defended genetically modified (GM) food and crops and slammed "violent" protest tactics which were hampering development of the technology.
The Bangkok conference, sponsored by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and the British government, has been boycotted by an environmental alliance led by Greenpeace Southeast Asia.
The protesters mounted a march on the opening of the meeting at the United Nations building Tuesday, deriding the forum as an attempt by rich countries to force their technology on the developing world.
"They are more keen to protect the corporations and their investments while asking the countries of the South to accept the violation of the laws of nature and religious ethics in return for GM crops," the alliance said.
About 30 demonstrators, including villagers from Thailand's provinces, dumped garbage bins full of genetically modified papayas, tomatoes and corn on the steps of the UN building.
Greenpeace International representative Jan van Aken backed the protests and said it was no coincidence the forum was being held in the capital of a developing nation.
"I think they have a point. Why are they holding the meeting here? To use it as a propaganda show?"
"I'm curious to see if there is one single critical word in the final report. Our experience with the OECD is that they are an organisation for industrialised countries," he told AFP.
In his opening speech, Prescott acknowledged the protest, and urged the 200 government officials and industry leaders attending the biotechnology meeting to "move ahead responsibly and not store up trouble for the future." He said that despite the potential risks they introduced, genetically engineered food and crops had the capacity to help humanity.
Prescott acknowledged deep public suspicion towards GM technology, partly due to a lack of transparency in research work and a widely held belief that the biotech industry has tried to force products on an unwilling public. "The public's real concerns must be addressed and there must be greater transparency of information in the labelling of GM foods to allow genuine consumer choice," he said.
The conclusions of the Bangkok meeting entitled "New Biotechnology Food and Crops: Science, Safety and Society" will be presented at the Group of Eight summit of industrialised nations in Genoa from July 20 to 22. Organisations co-sponsoring the conference, including the World Health Organisation, the Food and Agriculture Organisation and the United Nations Environment Program, plan to launch discussions on the results.
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2. THAI FARMERS, NGOS PROTEST GMO FOOD AT OECD [shortened]
July 10, 2001
Associated Press/Agence France Presse English
BANGKOK -- About 100 Thai farmers and activists from nongovernmental organizations (NGO) were cited as gathering Tuesday in front of the U.N. regional headquarters in Bangkok to protest a promotion of genetically modified organisms (GMO) by developed countries.
The stories say that the noisy demonstration took place as the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) began a three-day conference on biotechnology in Bangkok.
The conference aims to explore ways of integrating public concern and the best scientific knowledge available into national and international consensus-building on biotechnology.
Meanwhile inside the conference, Gurdev Khush of the Manila-based International Rice Research Institute defended genetically modified (GM) crops, saying that that biotechnology is a critical weapon in the developing world's battle against hunger and malnutrition, adding, "We have to use all the tools at our disposal to develop new plant varieties."
Khush was further cited as saying that biotechnology could be used to develop plant varieties that would boost yields and nutrition, and transform the lives of the world's poor. The International Rice Research Institute has recently begun research on so-called Golden rice, a variety that would produce high levels of vitamin A.
Khush said such a rice could save the sight of nearly one million malnourished children who go blind every year due to vitamin A deficiencies.
At the opening of the conference Tuesday, Britain's Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott was cited as defending genetically engineered food and crops and slammed "violent" protest tactics which were hampering development of the technology...
Philip Regal of the University of Minnesota was cited as telling the conference that the political furore surrounding genetically modified foods has hampered scientific work resulting in lax regulation, and that legitimate scientific concerns about the environmental effects of transgenic crops have often been ignored due to fears investors or consumers will be scared away, adding, "I have questions about whether the scientific community has prepared for this era" of genetically modified crops.
Regal was further cited as saying that the overshadowing of science by politics in the United States began with the Reagan administration in the late 1980s, when biotechnology was almost completely deregulated and critics of the science were ignored, adding, "Those political problems will not go away" and that decisions on the future of biotechnology would continue to be heavily influenced by industry and politics rather than governed by good science.
Regal, a long-time observer of the environmental risks of GM food and crops, warned that "we should expect some very strange things to happen. We are making some very powerful interventions in biological systems."
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3. Politics & Profits Drive Biotech Promo - NOT Science
Published on Tuesday, July 10, 2001 by Agence France Presse
Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development Politics, Profits Increasing Risks of Biotech Foods
BANGKOK - The political furor surrounding genetically modified foods has hampered scientific work and resulted in lax regulation, experts told a conference debating the safety of the technology Tuesday.
Legitimate scientific concerns about the environmental effects of transgenic crops have often been ignored due to fears investors or consumers will be scared away, said Philip Regal of the University of Minnesota.
"I have questions about whether the scientific community has prepared for this era" of genetically modified crops, he told the conference, sponsored by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Regal said the overshadowing of science by politics in the United States began with the Reagan administration in the late 1980s, when biotechnology was almost completely deregulated and critics of the science were ignored.
"Those political problems will not go away" he said, adding that decisions on the future of biotechnology would continue to be heavily influenced by industry and politics rather than governed by good science.
Regal, a long-time observer of the environmental risks of GM food and crops, warned that "we should expect some very strange things to happen. We are making some very powerful interventions in biological systems." He noted some surprising results from transgenic research that scientists had not predicted, including that transgenic crops are capable of cross pollinating with traditional or wild crops.
Scientists have also found that transgenic fish produce growth hormones in their livers rather than their brains, and that transgenic pathogens could become deadly bioweapons, he said.
Regal called on the scientific community to communicate better across disciplines to assess the risks of transgenic crops or animals. "There are a lot of reasons to be concerned," he said.
Conference organizer Gabrielle Persley of the Paris-based International Council of Scientific Unions underscored Regal's comments. "None of us know as much as we think we know and none of us know as much as we need to know," she said.
The United States is the largest developer and producer of transgenic crops, and the US regulatory system is often seen as a model for other countries developing their own systems.
Copyright © 2001 AFP
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4. NGO Statement for the International Conference New Biotechnology Foods and Crops: Science, Safety and Society
Bangkok, 10-12 July 2001
Newly Independent States (NIS) NGOs
Witnessing numerous cases of pollination of non-genetically-modified and organic crops by the pollen of genetically modified (GM) crops, noting also the accidental contamination of foods and crops and seed stocks by GM crop varieties unapproved for human consumption in the United States (the StarLink case), alarmed at the scale and possible consequences of such events, indignant at the attempts to dump on the NIS market GM foods unwanted elsewhere, offended at the offer of food rejected by others as charity aid to the people of our countries, concerned to protect the rights of people to choose the foods they eat, dedicated to protecting human and animal health and the health of the biosphere from the possible consequences of genetic pollution,
we call on OECD countries governments to take the following steps:
- to ban further and terminate current commercial growth and field trials of GM crops until the problem of cross-pollination has been solved to the mutual satisfaction of all parties concerned,
- to fund and ensure full-scale research into the potential health, environmental, and other effects of GM crops and foods in all ecosystems into which such crops and foods are proposed for introduction,
- to guarantee that such research is carried out by competent, independent sources and that all data and results of such research are made available for public scrutiny,
- to underwrite biosafety capacity building wherever such capacity building may be needed or else to forego the introduction of GM crops and foods in those countries without adequate biosafety capacity to assess the effects of crops and seeds and foods being exported into their territory,
- to ensure strong regulatory control over and traceability of all GMOs at every stage from laboratory research to production and commercialization,
- to create representative, public commissions free from corporate influence and fully empowered to advise and oversee the regulatory system,
- to ensure effective border control of GM foods and crops movements,
- to introduce mandatory, no-threshold labelling of GM foods and crops,
- to sign and ratify the Cartagena Biosafety Protocol and strictly enforce its provisions,
- to provide for opennes and inclusivness for public of all Biosafety Porotcol related procedures
- to cease dumping GM foods and seeds on Third World countries or on countries whose economies are in transition,
- to take all necessary steps to protect centers of origin and centers of agricultural diversity from genetic pollution and to ensure that no genetic engineering experiments, field trials, or commercialization ever be done at or near such centers,
- to advocate for the necessary changes in national and international law to make impossible the patenting of any species or parts of any species
- to respect the right of every nation to ban GM foods and crops in order to fulfill the will of its people and to protect its national health and environment.
Olga Berlova, Victoria Kolesnikova, SEU Biosafety Campaign, International Socio-Ecological Union, Alexey Yablokov, President, Center for Russian Environmental Policy, Moscow, Russia Lev Fedorov, President, Union for Chemical Safety, Moscow, Russia Evgeny A. Shvarts, Director of Conservation, Russian Program Office World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) Alexey Zimenko, Director, for Biodiversity Conservation Center, Moscow, Russia Piotr Gorbunenko, President, «Biotica», Moldova Dmitry Yanin, Vice-President, Interrepublican Confederation of Consumers Societies Tatyana Topchiy, «Green Dossier», Kiev, Ukraine Alexey Angurets, Executive Director, GMO Campaign of Zelenyi Svit - Friends of the Earth Ukraine Svetlana Leu, President, Center for Prevention of Industrial Pollution, Chisinau, Republic of Moldova George Magradze, GMO-Campaign Coordinator, Greens Movement of Georgia / FoE-Georgia Lyudmila Romanova, Chairperson, «Harmony», Kamchatka