1 INDIGENOUS TERRITORIES DECLARED GE FREE
2.Guipipia, Santa Cruz declared GE Free
Note in item 2: You may want to congratulate and support the Santa Cruz decision.
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1.THE INDIGENOUS TERRITORIES OF ZENU, CORDOVA AND SUCRE WERE DECLARED GE FREE
San Andres de Sotavento, October 7th 2005
More than 300 indigenous leaders and authorities, from the indigenous territories of Zenu in San Andres de Sotavento, which belong to the Municipalities of Cordova and Sucre, together with 5 organizations of organic producers, declared their territory GE FREE.
The decision was based in the important role of corn in their culture, productive systems and food sovereignty. At the moment they conserve more than 25 different varieties of corn with a very rich culinary culture. The corn is a sacred food, and this is why they call themselves "sons and daughter of corn".
There is a centre of diversity of corn in the Zenu territory, and close to it, the Government has established some plantations with GE corn, and the people think that there is a big threat of genetic contamination.
They demand from the local authorities to respect this decision and urged them to take necessary actions to control and monitor all the corn that enter into the territory.
They also asked the authorities to promote programs in support of the small farmer agriculture and demand the government to stop any food aid with GMOs.
They also rejected the intention of the Colombian Government and Monsanto and Dupont to introduce GE corn in Colombia, but specially the the Caribbean region, since it is centre of diversity of this crop.
In their declaration they made they called the civil society, the mass media to respect and support the declaration of the Zenu territory as GE Free.
They invite other indigenous and afro descendent organizations to declare their territories GE Free.
On the other hand they committed themselves to conserve and defend their seeds, productive systems, their food sovereignty based on agroecological sustainable systems.
The Zenu indigenous peoples are preparing an internal rule to control and protect their traditional seeds against biopiracy, genetic contamination and the introduction of GMOs inside their territory.
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2.Guipipia, Santa Cruz declared GE Free
Press Release
The Municipal Council of Santa Cruz in the Province of Guanacaste in Costa Rica, declared itself GE Free the 24th of October.
This is the second GE Free Municipality in Costa Rica, after the decision of the Council of Paraiso de Cartago
The decision to ban any GE crop inside Santa Cruz, was taken by all the members of the Council unanimously.
The decision was taken after the demand of the local communities inside the Municipality because of the possibility that their crops became contaminated by GMOs, declared Roger Matarrita, one of the members of the Council, which is also coordinator of Environment of the Municipality.
According with Matarrita the people of Guanacaste enjoy their meals based on traditional corn, and they do not want their varieties to be contaminated with transgenes.
The Council committed itself to promote agroecological initiatives in the region.
According with Fatima Montealegre, member of the community of Santa Barbara de Santa Cruz, the decision of the Council is the result of a process of study and deep analysis of all the members of the Municipality. It is not just the decision of the Members of the Council, she added, but is a process promoted from the grassroots of Santa Cruz.
She asked the international community to send letters of support to the decision of the Santa Cruz Council.
If you want to congratulate and support this decision, you can send a Fax to:
Concejo Municipal de Santa Cruz
Fax (506) 680-0629.
For more information
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. Tel: (506) 2836128