Earlier this month a seminar on biodiversity and biosafety was held in Brazil, by the IBSA (India, Brazil, South Africa) partnership. It was attended by the partnership of AS-PTA in Brazil, Chetna in India and Biowatch (IDEX Partner) and Surplus People Project (IDEX Grantee) in South Africa. Our appreciation is given to the AS-PTA for allowing us to publish their report.

The International Seminar for exchanging experiences, Brazil, India and South Africa: biodiversity and biosafety, was held in the city of Rio de Janeiro on August the 9th and 10th with around 40 participants.

As well as the organizations from Brazil, India and South Africa linked to the Ford-IBSA project, the seminar was attended by representatives of entities from Peru, Uruguay, the United States, the Philippines and Germany working in the area. The latter came at their own cost in response to AS-PTA’s invitation to organizations from other countries campaigning on the GMO issue. Around 15 Brazilian organizations also took part in the seminar and had their travel costs and expenses met by the Ministry of the Environment and the Ministry of Agrarian Development, thereby expanding the scope of the seminar, originally planned for members of the project only. University organizations and students from Rio de Janeiro were also present.

The seminar was composed of five panels. Four of these presented case studies produced by the entities taking part in the project. The session opened with an analysis of the agronomic and economic efficiency of the main GM crops (soya in Brazil, cotton in India and maize in South Africa), highlighting the gap between the situation experienced in the field by farmers who have adopted GM seeds and the promises made by the industry. This was followed by a debate on the biosafety legislation in the three countries. In the Brazilian case, input also came from the Federal Attorney responsible for coordinating the Federal Public Prosecutor’s Working Group on GMOs and Pesticides, who analyzed the organ’s role in monitoring the National Biosafety Technical Commission (CTNBio). Explaining the actions taken by the Public Prosecutor’s Office to rectify CTNBio’s mistakes, the Attorney General emphasized that the Office is actively working on the issue largely because of the demands made by civil society. A member of CTNBio representing the pro-biosafety group on the commission also took part in the seminar.

The reviews of studies on the impacts of GMOs on the environment and human health commissioned by AS-PTA were presented by a consultant from Nead/Ministry of Agrarian Development and a researcher from Fiocruz, respectively. This panel showed that there now exists a growing body of scientific evidence corroborating the warnings made years earlier, but discarded by the regulatory bodies of various countries, in general concerned less with biosafety issues and more with the interests of the biotechnology industry.

The program also included a panel on the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity, whose Fifth Meeting of the Parties (MOP 5) will be held in October in Japan. The Third World Network’s representative explored the main themes on the negotiation agenda at MOP 5, while the representatives from the Ministries of the Environment and Agrarian Development discussed the internal process of formulating the Brazilian position and their expectations for the event in terms of advances in implementing the agreement. As well as updating participants on the current negotiations, the roundtable performed the function of amplifying the Brazilian government’s dialogue with the organizations who work on the issue, anticipating the preparatory process for the next round of negotiations.

On the 11th and 12th a meeting was held of the GM campaigns who had attended the seminar: AS-PTA and Terra de Direitos, representing the group coordinating the Brazilian campaign, the Pesticide Action Network – North America PANNA, the Philippines Third World Network, Uruguay Redes, ETC Andes Peru and EED from Germany, as well as Chetna from India, and Biowatch and the Surplus People Project from South Africa. This meeting was convoked with the objective of initiating a process of international coordination of initiatives on the issue. At the end of the meeting a number of common themes were reached, identified as priorities by the participants based on the specific contexts in each of their regions (contamination and monopoly of the seed market, legislation and risk analysis, information and organic markets). These themes were prominent among the challenges cited during the seminar, especially the panel on campaign work. The participants also established activities for each of these points, which combined can form the basis for a partnership and exchange project. It was concluded that the meeting had achieved its objective of initiating a process of closer liaisons between campaigns from different countries with the aim of creating a shared platform for interaction.

Responding to AS-PTA’s invitation, organizations from other countries expressed their interest in taking part in the activities, but could not attend as they were unable to cover their travel costs. This fact reinforces the potential of the initiative and illustrates that efforts should be made to promote or make use of international meetings and exchanges that continue the process of building a shared platform for campaigning on the GMO issue with the aim of strengthening civil society.

« Previous Post

Next Post »