Dear GENET-news readers,

20 minutes ago, the delegates of COP-8 decided to keep the de-facto moratorium of Terminator field trials and commercialization as stated in the decision V/5 from COP-5. The controversial new text from the recently convened CBD working group on Art.8j - dealing with the rights of indigenous peoples and local communities over their traditional knowledge - was rejected in total. The COP-8 decision - which has to be adopted formally on Friday 31 March - is based on the text submitted by the CBD scientific body SBSTTA and explicitly reaffirmes Decision V/5.

This announcement by the Chair caused relief amongst the various indigenous peoples, local communities and civil society organisations. There had been long-lasting and strong lobby work by these organizations against the 8j-text accompagnied by demonstrations of Brazilian small farmers and peasants during the last days.

More analyses are going to follow.

Hartmut Meyer
GENET
European NGO Network on Genetic Engineering