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Fwd: Alert - Citizens' Forum on Genetic Engineering & Trade
X-Sender: kgunn@cyberus.ca
Date: Mon, 10 Jan 2000 22:26:41 -0500
To: (Recipient list suppressed)
From: "Armand Cote" <beauco@istar.ca> (by way of Katherine Gunn
<kgunn@cyberus.ca>)
Subject: Alert - Jan. 22 - COC- CITIZENS' FORUM - GENETIC ENGINEERING AND TRADE
This is a 'heads'up' notice - details will follow over the next few days,
including whether we are able to organize a bus for people to get to
Montreal. You may want to begin alerting friends who could be interested in
attending the day session (10 am to 4 pm), with an optional street
demonstration over lunch-hour.
The more people in attendance, the more the government and corporations will
be made aware of our opinions.
Katherine
----- Original Message -----
From: Victoria <vgibb-carsley@canadians.org>
To: <chapters@canadians.org>
Sent: December 22, 1999 1:43 PM
Subject: COC-CHAPS-L CITIZENS' FORUM - GENETIC ENGINEERING AND TRADE
> Victoria Gibb-Carsley
> National Organizer
> The Council of Canadians
> vgibb-carsley@canadians.org
> 1-800-387-7177
> Phone: 613-233-4487 ext 228
> Fax: 613-233-6776
> Website: www.canadians.org
>
>
>
> > CITIZENS' FORUM
> > on Genetic Engineering and Trade
> > January 22, 2000 - Montreal, QC
> >
> > SPREAD THE WORD! Saturday, January 22, the Council of Canadians together
> > with Greenpeace will be hosting a Citizens' Forum on genetic engineering
> > (GE). This event is held on the eve of the next round of negotiations on
> > the Biosafety Protocol (see below) to be held in Montreal January 24-28.
> >
> > A series of workshops and presentations will be held throughout the day on
> > a range of topics related to GE and trade. The workshops will be
> > facilitated by Canadian and international activists and experts on the
> > perils of genetic engineering, life-form patenting, and links to the WTO.
> >
> > There will be a public protest mid-day, to protest efforts by Canada, the
> > U.S. and others to kill the deal.
> >
> > In the evening, we will hold a large-scale public event with prominent
> > guest speakers, including Maude Barlow, the Council's Volunteer National
> > Chairperson.
> >
> > Locations and times for all events TBA. An email update will be sent early
> > in the new year.
> >
> >
> > For more information, contact:
> > The Council of Canadians
> > 1-800-387-7177
> > inquiries@canadians.org
> >
> >
> > BACKGROUND ON THE PROTOCOL:
> > This event is to be held on the eve of the next round of negotiations on
> > the Biosafety Protocol, an international agreement born out of the
> > Convention on Biological Diversity, to which 174 countries are signatory:
> > the protocol to control transborder shipments of GE materials. The U.S and
> > Canada, along with a few other GE-friendly countries have been trying to
> > kill the protocol, much to the outrage of the vast majority of countries
> > signatories to the Rio Convention. This is particularly outrageous
> > considering the U.S. is not signatory to the Rio Convention.
> >
> > The following article provides some more good background:
> >
> > http://www.enn.com/enn-features-archive/1999/04/040799/wwatch_2512.asp
> >
> > The Worldwatch Report:
> > U.S. derails Biosafety Protocol
> > Monday, April 5, 1999
> >
> > By Brian Halweil
> >
> > After a week of negotiations in Cartagena, Colombia, delegates
> > representing 174 nations failed to reach a consensus on the Biosafety
> > Protocol-the first global treaty designed to safeguard the world's
> > biodiversity from possible adverse effects of transgenic or genetically
> > modified organisms.
> >
> > The United States and a handful of other nations squelched attempts to
> > forge an 11th-hour agreement by the Feb. 22 deadline when they rejected a
> > watered-down proposal they said would inhibit the growth of the
> > multi-billion dollar global biotechnology industry.
> >
> > The Biosafety Protocol - an outgrowth of the Convention on Biological
> > Diversity reached at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro-will regulate
> > genetically modified organisms by designating which products need prior
> > consent before they are shipped to an importing nation. The primary
> > disagreement over the protocol involved whether agricultural commodities,
> > such as soybeans or potatoes, would also be subject to this advance
> > approval.
> >
> > With three-quarters of the global transgenic area in 1998 located on U.S.
> > soil, the United States leads a group of six agricultural exporters (the
> > others are Argentina, Australia, Canada, Chile, and Uruguay) who would
> > have liked to see agricultural commodities -- which they consider "dead"
> > and posing no threat to the environment-dropped from the protocol.
> >
> > Most other nations - likely to be importers of these products - disagreed,
> > arguing that in much of the developing world, food and feed commodities
> > are often used for seed, though not explicitly intended as such. These
> > delegates argued that transgenic commodities would inevitably find their
> > way into the wild, and that humans still have little understanding of how
> > transgenic crops, or the genes they contain, may behave if they spread
> > into the wild. Plants or genetic traits that prove particularly fit in a
> > natural setting may out-compete other species or wreak similar havoc on
> > other wild populations.
> > Sateeaved Seebaluck, a delegate from Mauritius, complained that the final
> > result of the Biosafety Protocol to preserve biodiversity resembled more
> > of a "biotrade" protocol. Issues that were dropped from the final draft
> > included the labeling of products derived from genetically modified
> > organisms, placing liability and responsibility for transgenic materials
> > on exporters, and granting grounds for refusing imports of transgenic
> > organisms based on socio-economic or human health concerns. Delegates
> > agreed to suspend the talks but re-open negotiations no later than May
> > 2000.
> > --------end of article----------
--
Katherine Gunn kgunn@cyberus.ca Ottawa, Canada
<< Comfort the afflicted, but afflict the comfortable >>
(St.Louis Post Dispatch, long ago).
________________________________________________________________________
Jamie Kneen tel. (613) 236-9188
569 1/2 McLeod Street fax: (613) 236-8632
Ottawa, Ontario K1R 5R2 Canada e-mail: jkneen@web.net
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