Environmental Challenges Ahead, Terminator Ban Remains

A 'worrying' range of potential threats to sustainable agriculture, biodiversity and the livelihoods of the world's poorest communities emerged at the recent meeting of signatories to UN's Convention of Biological Diversity (CBD), Progressio said in a briefing to MPs this week.

In a letter sent to Members of Parliament thanking them for their support during Progressio's "Say NO to Terminator Seeds" campaign, Environmental Policy Officer Sol Oyuela warned that governments' decisions on agrofuels and GM trees were of 'deep concern'.

Despite rising global food prices and reservations about the environmental sustainability of agrofuels - liquid fuels that are produced from vast swathes of agricultural crops - the CBD ignored African governments' and civil society calls to impose a ban on their industrial production. Instead, states were urged to promote 'sustainable' production and use of agrofuels.

The CBD also backed the eventual rollout of genetically modified trees despite widespread concerns about potential contamination of indigenous forests and ecosystems. GM trees would also pose a serious threat to the livelihoods of people who depend on the forests, Progressio's briefing to MPs said.

'The decisions finally adopted [at the CBD summit] failed to acknowledge the impact that these new technologies could have on the environment and the livelihoods of poor communities', Oyuela wrote in a letter to MPs that accompanied the briefing.

'It is worrying that the [CBD] failed to strengthen its commitment to the conservation of biodiversity and the protection of the right to food - which is more urgent than ever,' she added.

The existing UN ban on the commercialisation of Terminator technology, the focus of a hard-fought Progressio campaign, was kept in place by delegations to the CBD summit, however.

Thousands of Progressio supporters in the UK wrote to their MPs and sent Valentines cards to EU Commissioner for the Environment, Stavros Dimas, outlining their concerns about Terminator Technology, which would be used to produce plants with sterile seeds.

They argued Terminator would spell disaster for 1.4 billion of the world's poorest farmers who rely on saving and replanting seeds from one year to the next to feed their families and make a living. There are also significant environmental concerns surrounding Terminator technology, supporters of the campaign said.

Read Progressio's briefing to MPs on the new and emerging issues discussed at the CBD (31k Word).