"New Enclosures"

News Release Coalition Against Biopiracy 7 March 2008 www.captainhookawards.org Ahoy, Mates! The Coalition Against Biopiracy today calls for nominations for the Fifth Captain Hook Awards

*** Please Circulate to Your Networks throughout the Seven Seas *** What's the most scandalous case of biopiracy[1] in your country? Who's ripping off indigenous knowledge in your community? Which privateer is most egregiously pillaging the global commons for profit? Who's monopolizing your genes or patenting your plants?

Nominate your least favorite pirate for a 2008 Captain Hook Award. All outrageous achievements in biopiracy deserve recognition!

Nominate your most admired biopiracy-resistor for a 2008 Cog Award. All those who have fought off biopirates, defeated predatory patents or otherwise foiled the nefarious plots of fiendish privateers deserve recognition. (Cog Awards are so-named because cogs were ships designed to... Read more

ETC Group News Release 3 May 2007 www.etcgroup.org

REVOKED!! Monsanto Monopoly Nixed in Munich

but little joy in foiling soy ploy at this late date

Munich – The European Patent Office today put the brakes on Monsanto’s over-the-top corporate greed by revoking its species-wide patent on all genetically modified soybeans (EP0301749) – a patent unprecedented in its broad scope. ETC Group, an international civil society organization based in Canada, won its 13-year legal challenge against Monsanto’s species-wide soybean patent when an EPO appeal board ruled that the patent was not new or sufficient (i.e., the invention claimed was not sufficiently described for a skilled person to repeat it). The patent challenge was supported by Greenpeace and “No Patents on Life!” Dr. Ricarda Steinbrecher of UK-based EcoNexus also joined the opposition team in Munich as a... Read more

News Release ETC Group 16 August 2006 www.etcgroup.org www.banterminator.org

Monsanto Announces Takeover of Delta & Pine Land and Terminator Seed Technology (again)

In a quest to expand its corporate seed empire - Monsanto, the world's largest seed enterprise - announced yesterday that it will buy the world's leading cotton seed company, Mississippi-based (USA) Delta & Pine Land, for US$1.5 billion. Monsanto and Delta & Pine Land (D&PL) together account for over 57% of the US cotton seed market. With D&PL subsidiaries in 13 countries - including major markets such as China, India, Brazil, Mexico, Turkey and Pakistan - the takeover means that Monsanto will command a dominant position in one of the world's most important agricultural trade commodities and that millions of cotton farmers will be under increased pressure to accept genetically... Read more

19th May 2006 NEWS RELEASE

Global Coalition Sounds the Alarm on Synthetic Biology, Demands Oversight and Societal Debate

Today, a coalition of thirty-eight international organizations including scientists, environmentalists, trade unionists, biowarfare experts and social justice advocates called for inclusive public debate, regulation and oversight of the rapidly advancing field of synthetic biology - the construction of unique and novel artificial life forms to perform specific tasks. Synthetic biologists are meeting this weekend in Berkeley, California where they plan to announce a voluntary code of self-regulation for their work (1). The organizations signing the Open Letter are calling on synthetic biologists to abandon their proposals for self-governance and to engage in an inclusive process of global societal debate on the implications of their work (see attached Open Letter).

"The researchers meeting in Berkeley acknowledge the dangers of... Read more

Background Document

Synthetic Biology - Global Societal Review Urgent!

Synthetic biology (the attempt to create artificial living organisms) should be self-regulated say scientists at Berkeley assembly. Civil Society organizations say "No!"

"If biologists are indeed on the threshold of synthesizing new life forms, the scope for abuse or inadvertent disaster could be huge." Nature, October 2004

Scientists working at the interface of engineering and biology - in the new field of "synthetic biology" - worry that public distrust of biotechnology could impede their research or draw attention to regulatory chasms. Synthetic biologists are trying to design and construct artificial living systems to perform specific tasks, such as producing pharmaceutical compounds or energy. In October 2004, the journal Nature warned, "if biologists are indeed on the threshold of synthesizing new life forms, the scope for abuse or... Read more

Campanha Terminar Terminator Comunicado de Imprensa 31 de março de 2006 www.etcgroup.org www.banterminator.org

Movimentos de Agricultores, de Povos Indígenas e de Organizações da Sociedade Civil ao Redor do Mundo Exigem Banimento

É oficial. Os governos na Convenção de Diversidade Biológica das Nações Unidas (CDB), de forma unânime, mantiveram a moratória internacional de facto sobre a tecnologia Terminator - plantas que são geneticamente engenheiradas para produzirem sementes estéreis na colheita. A 8ª reunião da CDB foi encerrada hoje, em Curitiba, Brasil.

"A CDB, acertadamente, rejeitou as tentativas do Canadá, Austrália e Nova Zelândia - apoiados pelo governo dos Estados Unidos e pela... Read more

The Coalition Against Biopiracy exposed the globe's nastiest biopirates and rewarded the most steadfast resistors at the Captain Hook Awards on 24 March during the meeting of the 8th Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity in Curitiba, Brazil. This ETC Group Communique provides a detailed description of the 2006 award winners.

Ban Terminator Campaign News Release www.banterminator.org 22nd March 2006

Terminator Seed Battle Begins: Farmers Face Billions of Dollars in Potential Costs

Curitiba, Brazil. After a week that has seen a worldwide mobilisation against Terminator technology, the issue of Suicide Seeds is about to hit the negotiating floor of the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) meeting in Curitiba, Brazil. Known to the CBD as GURTs (Genetic Use Restriction Technologies), Terminator crops are genetically modified to create sterile seeds at harvest so that farmers must buy new seed every season. Today the Ban Terminator Campaign, a global coalition of over 500 organisations, released new financial calculations indicating that Terminator seeds will impose a burden of billions of extra dollars in seed costs on some of the world's poorest nations.

The calculations,... Read more

ETC Group Ban Terminator Campaign News Release 27 January 2006 www.etcgroup.org www.banterminator.org

Granada's Grim Sowers Plow up Moratorium on Terminator, Clear the Path for its Approval at UN

Terminator Opponents Prepare for Battle at COP8 in Curitiba, Brazil March 20-31, 2006

Indigenous peoples were betrayed and Farmers' Rights trampled at a UN meeting this week when the Australian, New Zealand and Canadian governments - guided by the US government and a brazen cabal of corporate Gene Giants - took a major step to undermine the existing moratorium on Terminator technology (i.e., plants that are genetically modified to produce sterile seeds at harvest). The damaging recommendations from the meeting in Granada, Spain, now go to the upcoming 8th biennial meeting of the UN's Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in... Read more

New from ETC Group – January 2006

New Publications

ETC at World Social Forum in Caracas

Coming Soon: ETC Blog

State of the World 2006 includes a chapter on nanotechnology written by ETC Group. "Shrinking Science: An Introduction to Nanotechnology" provides an overview of tiny tech and its colossal societal impacts. ETC's chapter concludes: "In the coming decades, technologies converging at the nanoscale will revolutionize the design and manufacture of new materials, blur the distinction between living and non-living matter, and change the very definition of what it means to be human. The challenge is to go beyond the tired and familiar approach of technocratic regulations related to 'risk' and to gain an innovative capacity for democratic control and assessment of science and technology."

Copies of the State of the World 2006 can be ordered here: Read more

The Enola bean patent case demonstrates that intellectual property challenges are not a viable means of "correcting" abuses in the patent system. It has been five years since the Colombia-based International Center for Tropical Agriculture filed an official challenge of the now infamous Enola bean patent in Washington, DC. Because of bureaucratic delays and diversions, it's not over yet! ETC Group provides an update on Mexican bean biopiracy.

ETC GroupNews Release16 December 2005www.etcgroup.org

ETC Group Releases New Report on Corporate Power, Oligopoly, Inc. 2005

As governments at the 6th WTO Ministerial in Hong Kong bristle with the thorny politics of trade, the report that ETC Group releases today, Oligopoly, Inc. 2005, serves as a reminder that what looks like buying and selling between countries is most often the redistribution of capital among subsidiaries of the same parent multinational corporation.

ETC Group's new report is available at www.etcgroup.org

 In Oligopoly, Inc. 2005 ETC Group revisits the sectors analyzed in Oligopoly, Inc. 2003 and finds that corporate concentration - not only in food and agriculture, but in all sectors related to the products and processes of life - has increased remarkably since the last review two years ago. Since then:

* the world's top 10 seed companies have increased their... Read more

In Oligopoly, Inc. 2005 ETC Group finds that corporate concentration -- not only in food and agriculture, but in all sectors related to the products and processes of life -- has increased remarkably since ETC's last review two years ago. The report also reveals that a subterranean struggle is underway at the nano-scale to control the fundamental building blocks of life and nature. Corporate investment in nanobiotechnology (or, synthetic biology) could give ultimate control to a very different set of corporate actors.

"The Potential Impacts of Nano-Scale Technologies on Commodity Markets," prepared for the South Centre, examines the potential impacts of nanotechnology on two sectors - agriculture and mining - in commodity dependent developing countries. Cases studies on rubber, textiles, platinum and copper provide early examples of how economies and workers in the global South could be affected by nanotech's emerging R&D and products.

ETC Group announces the release of "A Tiny Primer on Nano-scale Technologies ...and The Little BANG Theory", a 20 (small) pages pocket guide to nanotechology- a suite of techniques used to manipulate matter at the scale of atoms and molecules.

O Grupo ETC anuncia a publicação do "Manual de Bolso das Tecnologias em Nanoescala ...e a 'Teoria do Little Bang'", um guia básico de nanotecnologia - um conjunto de técnicas para manipular a materia na escala dos átomos e das moléculas (20 páginas). É possível baixar tanto a versão htlm como em PDF.

ETC GroupNews ReleaseMay 24, 2005www.etcgroup.org

Canada Jeopardizes Biotech Liability Talks

Belated Visa for Africa's Top Diplomat leaves UN's Montreal Biosafety negotiations in suspense

Ottawa - Dr. Tewolde Berhan Gebre Egziabher of Ethiopia, Africa's chief scientist and negotiator for the Cartagena (biosafety) Protocol, received his Canadian visa late Tuesday evening Ethiopian time. Dr. Tewolde, who is scheduled to be in the crop biotech liability negotiations tomorrow morning, May 25, in Montreal, has his bags packed and is awaiting a revised plane ticket that - even under ideal circumstances - could only get him to Montreal in time for the final day of the controversial set of UN negotiations (May 27). After extended discussions over Canada's Victoria Day holiday on Monday, a visa arrived in Ethiopia from the Canadian High Commission in Nairobi Tuesday. 

Dr. Tewolde's delay at the hands of the Canadian government is particularly troubling... Read more

ETC GroupNews Release18 May 2005www.etcgroup.org

Canada Denies Visa for Africa's Top Biosafety Negotiator

Montreal's status as UN's biodiversity headquarters is jeopardized

In a breathtaking display of political interference, the Canadian government has blocked entry of Africa's chief negotiator for the Cartagena (biosafety) Protocol, who was scheduled to attend UN meetings beginning next week in Montreal. The Protocol is the United Nations treaty that governs the international movement of genetically modified (GM) organisms. 

Dr. Tewolde Berhan Gebre Egziabher, the Ethiopian government's chief scientist and its representative to the Montreal-based UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) had his passport returned without the requested Canadian visa yesterday, and without explanation.  

The renowned scientist submitted his passport to the Canadian embassy on May 5 and had planned to fly to Oslo, Norway for inter-regional... Read more