5-Year Global Ban On GE Crops Moves Closer
–20th April 2002
"5-Year Global Ban On GE Crops Moves Closer As Government Confirms Corn Now Contaminated. "
The demand for a global ban on new GE crops has been
given a boost by scientists confirming GE constructs have
contaminated original-maize varieties in Mexico,
despite
being banned since 1998.
The uproar over the discovery
has been plagued by scientific debate and PR spin but now
the government has confirmed the contamination has indeed
occurred.
" This is a warning that unless we stop
the rush to introduce more GE crops the whole of the food
chain could be rapidly and permanently contaminated, with
unknown and uninsured implications for the whole world."
says Jon Carapiet for Ge-Free NZ ( Food and
Environment)
There will be greatly increased demand for
the New Zealand to cancel its plan to allow commercial GE
release from October 2003 .
" The government's GE
Release clause in the new HSNO bill cannot be justified. We
are calling on all New Zealanders to urgently demand MPs
learn the facts about Mexico's disaster and oppose the
automatic lapse-clause allowing approvals of GE release.
The Clark government need to be supporting a five year moratorium at the international level. We must act now and anything less given this evidence is a crime against humanity and against all future generations' said Jon Carapiet.
Greenpeace has said it will activate its
supporters to lobby MPs against the automatic-lapse clause
on GE releases in the weeks leading to the vote in
Parliament.
ENDS
Media contact -Jon Carapiet 09 815 3370
Related articles from UK press
1.
Mexico's vital gene reservoir polluted by modified
maize
2. 'Worst ever' GM crop invasion
---
1.
Mexico's vital gene reservoir polluted by modified
maize
Paul Brown, environment correspondent
The
Guardian, Friday April 19,
2002
http://www.guardian.co.uk/gmdebate/Story/0,2763,686955,00.html
The Mexican government has confirmed that despite its
ban on genetically
modified maize, there is massive
contamination of crops in areas that
act as the gene bank
for one of the world's staple crops.
The
announcement of the worst ever contamination of crops by
GM
varieties was made yesterday at the biodiversity
convention meeting in
the Hague.
It fuels the
controversy stirred by the discovery of mutant strains
of
maize, which was originally reported in November in
the journal Nature
and then embarrassingly disowned by
the journal earlier this month.
But speaking at the
Hague, Jorge Soberon, a senior civil servant and
the
executive secretary of Mexico's national commission
on biodiversity,
said government tests had now shown the
level of contamination was far
worse than initially
reported.
Mexico is the home of hundreds of
varieties of maize which are allowed
to crossbreed to
produce the best crops for extreme conditions.
To
preserve this gene bank, the government banned planting of
GM crops
in 1998.
At first, Mexico rejected the
claims of contamination which were
published in Nature by
Ignacio Chapela and David Quist, of the
University of
California at Berkeley.
But the government went on
to take samples from sites in two states,
Oaxaca and
Puebla, said Ezequiel Ezcurra, the director of the
institute
of ecology at the ministry of the environment
in Mexico. The states are
the genetic home of maize.
A total of 1,876 seedlings was taken, and evidence of
contamination was
found at 95% of the sites. One field
had 35% contamination of plants.
Mr Soberon
confirmed this infiltration of supposedly pure strains
was
the worst recorded anywhere.
"There is no
doubt about it," he said. "We found it in 8% of
seeds
kernel by kernel."
It appeared that maize
imported into Mexico from the US for the
production of
tortillas may have been used as seed by farmers who
were
unaware that it contained grain derived from GM
crops.
The worst contamination was found near main
roads, along which maize is
sold to villagers. In remote
areas, contamination was down to between 1 and
2%.
The revealing factor was the presence of the cauliflower
mosaic virus,
which is used widely in GM crops to "switch
on" insecticides which have
been inserted into them.
Mr Soberon said the GM developers Monsanto, Syngenta and
Aventis all
used the same technology.
The
government could not find out which of the three varieties
of GM
maize was responsible for the contamination because
the companies
refused to disclose which protein they used
in such a commercially
sensitive project.
"I find
that extremely difficult to accept," he said. "How can
you
monitor what is going on if they do not allow you the
information to do
it?"
The research is continuing
and, after the dispute that followed the
publication of
the original paper, the Mexican government is having
it
carefully reviewed by peers before offering it for
publication in a
scientific journal.
---
2. 'Worst
ever' GM crop invasion
By Charles Clover, Environment
Editor in The Hague
Daily Telegraph, Friday April 19,
2002
THE world's worst case of pollution by
genetically-engineered crops
has taken place in southern
Mexico, the gene bank for maize, one of
the world's
staple crops, the Mexican government said yesterday.
Findings by Mexican scientists mark a new twist to a
story that has
provoked a bitter scientific battle on
both sides of the Atlantic.
Earlier this month
Nature, Britain's leading scientific journal, took
the
extraordinary step of disowning a paper it published in
November
by David Quist and Ignacio Chapela, researchers
at the University of
California, Berkeley, claiming to
prove that genes from GM maize grown
in the United States
had accidentally crossed into Mexico.
At the time Dr
Quist said his research showed the benefits of GM
crops
"don't outweigh the enormous risks to food
security".
The paper sparked a protest to Nature by
100 leading biologists. It
was also disowned by the
Mexican government after their scientists
could not
repeat the experiment.
Latest tests were carried out
by Mexican government scientists in an
attempt to settle
the controversy, Jorge Soberon, head of the
Mexican
delegation, told a meeting of parties to the
Convention on Biological
Diversity in The Hague.
Some 1,876 seedlings from indigenous varieties of maize
grown by
traditional farmers in the rural southern states
of Oaxaca and Puebla
were analysed by scientists from the
National Autonomous University of
Mexico and the
Environment Ministry.
In 95 per cent of the sites
surveyed, they found traces of a gene from
the
cauliflower mosaic virus, used as a promoter to "switch
on"
insecticidal or herbicidal properties in GM varieties
of maize used in
the United States.
Contamination
varied from one to 35 per cent of a farmer's crop,
with
10-15 per cent average, showing that GM genes had
cross-pollinated at
a speed never before predicted in the
four years since GM maize
entered the country.
Mr
Soberon, secretary of the environment ministry's
national
commission on biodiversity, said: "This is the
world's worst case of
contamination by genetically
modified material because it happened in
the place of
origin of a major crop. It is confirmed. There is
no
doubt about it."
Philip Campbell, editor of
Nature, said: "The Chapela results remain
to be
confirmed. If the Mexican government has confirmed them, so
be
it."
Ends