1.Watchdog lodges Complaint against South African govt for breaking international GMO Treaty
2.South African GM Grapevine Field Trials to go Ahead
3.Pirating African heritage: the pillaging continues
---
---
1.Watchdog lodges Complaint against South African govt for breaking international GMO Treaty
African Centre for Biosafety, 12 August 2009

The African Centre for Biosafety (ACB) is a South African NGO deeply concerned with biosafety in South Africa and on the African continent. It campaigns against GMOs in food and agriculture.

The ACB has today lodged a complaint to the Compliance Committee established under an international treaty, the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety on the grounds that the South African government has failed to comply with the Treaty's obligations with regard to open sharing of information and transparency in regard to GMO decision-making.  

The Biosafety Protocol is an international treaty seeking to protect biodiversity, health and society world-wide from the risks posed by GMOs.    Its provisions became binding on South Africa as long ago as August 2003.

The Protocol requires South Africa to make available to the public, and other Parties to the Protocol, specific information relating to GMO permit applications and decision-making via a web based information sharing mechanism, called the Biosafety Clearing House (BCH). This includes posting information on GMO decisions in a timely manner, summaries of risk assessments, GMO permits issued and the reasons for their approval, conditions of approvals and so forth.

"The South African government has granted more than 15000 GMO applications since the Protocol became binding on South Africa, yet it has refused to supply the barest minimum of the information required by the Protocol." said ACB's director Mariam Mayet.

According to Haidee Swanby of the ACB, "We have called upon government on countless occasions to be transparent and to comply with the Treaty's obligations. It has chosen to ignore us, preferring rather to aggressively promote GMOs and corporate biotech interests in South Africa and the rest of the continent.”

According to Swanby, "Without access to information it is impossible to assert our right to participate in decision making regarding GMOs. The ACB has no choice but to seek the intervention of the Compliance Committee to bring South Africa to book."

ENDS

The ACB's full complaint to the Compliance Committee of the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety can be found on its website at www.biosafetyafrica.org.za

Contact:
Haidee Swanby, African Centre for Biosafety  082 459 8548   This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Mariam Mayet 083 269 4309 This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
---
---
2.South African GM Grapevine Field Trials to go Ahead
Spoiling the Fruit of the Vine
African Centre for Biosafety and Earthlife Africa eThekwini, 7 August 2009

South African authorities have given the go-ahead for open-air field trials of grapevines genetically modified (GM) to resist fungal disease, despite the failure of fungal resistant grapevines in German trials several years ago. The Institute for Wine Biotechnology (IWB) based at the University of Stellenbosch lodged their application to conduct open- air field trials of GM Sultana and Chardonnay grapevine varieties in 2006.

The African Centre for Biosafety (ACB) interrogated the safety data submitted by the IWB in 2006 and submitted an objection the grounds that the risk of contamination of adjacent fields was very high, posing a risk to South Africa’s lucrative export market. "The European Union is South Africa’s major trade partner in the wine industry, where consumers have very low tolerance for genetically modified products. Contamination is a real threat as seed can be transported by birds or rain and could put our export market at risk for a technology that has already proven ineffective.” said ACB’s Haidee Swanby.

"Although the proponents argue that the GM grapevine reduces the need for pesticides in the vineyard, they are simply replacing one form of pesticide with another. GM crops have consistently developed resistance to targeted pests requiring the use of additional and often more toxic chemicals, threatening health and farmer incomes ”, said Vanessa Black of Earthlife Africa..

The vibrant South African wine and tourism industry plays an important role in the South African economy. In 2008 exports of South African wines outstripped domestic sales in terms of volume for the first time in history, with a whopping 316.8 million litres of wine flowing to foreign shores<#_edn1>[i]. Our most popular destinations being the UK, Germany, Netherlands and Sweden<#_edn2>[ii]. In South Africa the wine and wine tourism industry employs an estimated 260 000 people.

According to the IWB’s permit application, should field trials lead to commercial release of the GM Sultanas and Chardonnay varieties, they would be destined for the table as well as wines.

The University of Stellenbosch applied for a permit in 2006, but the authorities sent it back requesting further information. “The scanty information supplied in the application relied heavily on outdated and abandoned biosafety studies conducted at the German Institute for Vine Breeding (IVB). The permit has now been granted, but still on condition that further information be supplied”, said Swanby.

The African Centre for Biosafety will appeal against the approval of the permit.

ENDS
The ACB's scientific assessment of the 2006 application can be found at http://www.biosafetyafrica.org.za/images/stories/dmdocuments/Objections_GM_Wine_TSGn_TCGn_10_10_06.pdf

Contact:
Haidee Swanby, African Centre for Biosafety 082 459 8548 This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Vanessa Black, Earthlife Africa eThekwini, 082 472 8844 This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
---
---
3.Pirating African heritage: the pillaging continues
African Centre for Biosafety
http://www.biosafetyafrica.net/index.html/index.php/20090810234/Pirating-African-heritage-the-pillaging-continues-Media-release/menu-id-100029.html

The African Centre for Biosafety (ACB), a non- profit activist organization based in South Africa, has today released a report documenting 7 new cases of suspected biopiracy involving legally untenable patents/patent applications.

Some patents have already been granted and others are still pending in Europe and the USA in respect of African resources ranging from medicinal plants, and marine sponges to human viruses. The patent claimants include European big corporations such as Bayer and Louis Vuitton (Christian Dior), small natural health businesses, and even include the USA government.

“The 7 cases show that the patent systems in Europe and the United States are being used to promote the misappropriation of traditional knowledge and biological resources from the South” said Mariam Mayet, Director of the ACB.

German based agriculture and healthcare giant Bayer, has staked a claim to the use of any extract from any plant of the Vernonia genus in Madagascar for “improving the skin status.” The patent application appears to violate international law as it duplicates traditional knowledge held by indigenous communities in Madagascar. Bayer has in particular, laid claim to a particular Vernonia species endemic to Madagascar, known as ‘ambiaty’, which is used in their skin cream “Ambiaty Daily Revitalizing Cream.” An average Malagasy would exhaust his or her entire annual income on just seven jars of the cream.

According to Mayet, “Patents can only be granted for new ideas and inventions. Age old traditional knowledge can never be patented. In order to get around patent laws, traditional knowledge is mischievously being camouflaged in scientific lingo to appear as new inventions.”

Louis Vuitton has obtained a patent from the US Patent Office which allows it to lay claim to extracts from the seeds of the Aframomum angustifolium, a native African plant, which it claims prevents ageing skin. The seed extracts are sold as ‘Dior Capture Totale Multi-Perfection Correction Serum” for US $135 for 28 grams.

The US Department of Health has been granted a patent on the viruses taken from blood samples of indigenous people in the Cameroon. “Taken together with the recent patent claims on African lactose tolerance genes exposed by the ACB earlier this year, a disturbing trend of patenting biomedical research materials taken from the bodies of Africans is emerging”, said Mariam Mayet, of the ACB.

Some of the patent claimants say they intend to seek patents in South Africa and other African countries. The study found little and in some cases no evidence of the existence of prior informed consent agreements for using the resources that form the subject matter of the patents, nor mutually agreed benefit sharing arrangements, as required by the UN Convention on Biological Diversity.

The full report can be found on the website of the African Centre for Biosafety at www.biosafetyafrica.org.za

Mariam Mayet 083 269 4309