Hi all,
Here is the latest from Cartagena.
Diane Ridout, Instructor, ACP.............................................
Kwantlen University College, "Talk
12666-72 Avenue doesn't
Surrey, BC, Canada V3W 2M8 cook rice," they say.
Tel: (604) 599-2964 Voice mail 9837.......................................
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Wed, 24 Feb 1999 11:27:58 -0800
From: Biotech Activists
To: jest-west@sfu.ca
Subject: Biosafety talks broken by bio-industry
Canada stands as a global disgrace and corporate pimp. I am sorry to report
that Joyce Groot, president of BioteCanada, Canada's major biotech industry
lobby group, was in Cartagena and was one of the contact names on the industry
manifesto that determined the failure ot the talks. "Luddites" to the front!
- BK
Wednesday February 24
BIOGENETIC TRADE TALKS COLLAPSE
CARTAGENA, Colombia (AP) - Negotiations collapsed early today on a treaty
regulating international shipments of genetically modified organisms over
objections by a U.S.-led bloc, which critics said had stressed trade over
environmental protection.
The European Union and more than 110 other nations at the U.N.-initiated
talks reached consensus late Tuesday in an 11th-hour attempt to forge a
so-called Biosafety Protocol, an outgrowth of the 1992 Earth Summit in
Brazil.
But the United States and its allies - Australia, Canada, Uruguay,
Argentina and Chile - refused to accept the proposed compromise after 10
days of talks, insisting on a more narrowly focused treaty that would
minimally impact a multibillion-dollar industry that is growing.
"No deal was better than a bad deal and that was the outcome,'' said Rafe
Pomerance, deputy chief of the U.S. delegation.
"History will not pardon what happened,'' said Cuba's deputy
environmental minister, Mario Fajardo Moros, lamenting that such a small
group had torpedoed a global treaty.
It was the first time in more than 20 years that an international
environmental negotiation had concluded in such disarray, said Michael
Williams, spokesman for the U.N. Environmental Program.
The negotiations will resume within 16 months at an as yet undetermined
time and place.
Many nations were angered at what they considered bullying tactics by
Washington and its allies - major exporters of biotech products such as
insect-resistant crops and vaccines produced by splicing genes.
"We are being held at ransom so we can come closer to the position of the
United States,'' said Joseph Gopo, director of Zimbabwe's biotech research
institute.
Proponents say biotech crops will ensure future global food security,
producing higher yields with fewer chemical insecticides and herbicides.
They insist the products are rigorously tested and have so far presented
no health or environmental risks.
But critics say the technology is too new, predicting a biological time
bomb if just one transgenetic product goes awry.
Developing countries charged that the U.S.-led group was doing the bidding
of businesses whose chief interest is unfettered trade in biotech crops.
Although genetic engineering experimentation began two decades ago,
development of biotech foods, vaccines and byproducts has only recently
taken off. Worldwide, more than 66 million acres of genetically altered
crops were sown in 1998, up from about 2 million in 1996.
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