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Tell Monsanto Where To Go!

Saskatchewan farmers Percy and Louise Schmeiser fought Monsanto all the way to the Canadian Supreme Court when the Gene Giant accused them of violating Monsanto's patent on GM canola (oilseed rape). Percy and Louise did not want GM seeds on their property and they did not try to benefit from the herbicide-tolerant trait in the GM seed (that is, they didn't spray Roundup weedkiller). Yet, Monsanto came onto their land without permission, dug around to establish that GM canola had contaminated the Schmeisers' farm, and then blamed the family for the company's failure to control its own technology. GM canola pollen has been shown to travel as much as 26 kilometers (16.2 miles). Monsanto has been selling GM canola since 1996. Canola seed can survive in the soil for eight or more years. GM contamination can spread from fields to boulevards to cemeteries and home gardens. With the help of prairie winds and bees, GM seed planted in a field eight years ago could have hitchhiked more than 208 km. Today, GM canola is a major weed pest on the Canadian prairies.

Nano's Troubled Waters: Latest toxic warning shows nanoparticles cause brain damage in aquatic species and highlights need for a moratorium on the release of new nanomaterials

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A new study revealing that engineered carbon molecules known as "buckyballs" cause brain damage in fish is one more brick in the wall of evidence suggesting that manufactured nanoparticles are harmful to the environment and to health.

Jazzing Up Jasmine: Atomically Modified Rice in Asia?

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A nanotech research initiative in Thailand aims to atomically modify the characteristics of local rice varieties — including the country's famous jasmine rice — and to circumvent the controversy over Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs). Nanobiotech takes agriculture from the battleground of GMOs to the brave new world of Atomically Modified Organisms (AMOs).

In January 2004, Bangkok Post reported on a three-year research project at Chiang Mai University's nuclear physics laboratory,(1) funded by the National Research Council of Thailand, to atomically-modify rice. The research involves drilling a nano-sized hole (a nanometer is one-billionth of a meter) through the wall and membrane of a rice cell in order to insert a nitrogen atom. The hole is drilled using a particle beam (a stream of fast-moving particles, not unlike a lightening bolt) and the nitrogen atom is shot through the hole to stimulate rearrangement of the rice's DNA.

Playing God in the Galapagos

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J. Craig Venter, Master and Commander of Genomics, on Global Expedition to Collect Microbial Diversity for Engineering Life

The ETC Group releases a new Communiqué today (11.02.2004) that focuses on J. Craig Venter’s controversial ocean expedition that is circumnavigating the globe to collect microbial diversity from gene-rich seas and shores every 200 miles.

J. Craig Venter, the genomics mogul and scientific wizard who recently created a unique living organism from scratch in a matter of days, is searching for pay-dirt in biodiversity-rich marine environments around the world. Venter’s yacht, the Sorcerer II, is now steaming toward the South Pacific after collecting land and marine microbes from Maine to Mexico, Panama, Chile, and — most recently — on Ecuador’s famous Galapagos Islands.

Playing God in the Galapagos

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J. Craig Venter, the genomics mogul and scientific wizard who recently created a unique living organism from scratch in a matter of days, is searching for pay-dirt in the biodiversity-rich Galapagos Islands. From his 95-ft. yacht, Sorcerer II, Venter is hop-scotching around the globe collecting microbial diversity from gene-rich seas and shores every 200 miles.(1) Venter's ship has already sampled in the Sargasso Sea (North Atlantic), Mexico, Costa Rica, Panama, Ecuador (Galapagos), Chile and is now en route to French Polynesia (Tahiti, Bora Bora, etc.).

US-Latin Accord Undermines Biosafety Meeting In Malaysia

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As negotiations come to a head in Kuala Lumpur at the first meeting of the Biosafety Protocol of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) the United States along with Canada and a few Latin American states seem poised to render the 86-nation agreement irrelevant. News earlier this week that the Argentine Government has offered to collect taxes from its GM soybean farmers in lieu of royalty payments has stunned many delegations attending the meeting in the Malaysian capital.

Itty-bitty Ethics: Bioethicists see quantum plots in nanotech concern...and quantum bucks in buckyball brouhaha?

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In a paper released 28th January 2004, five University of Toronto (UT) ethicists accuse Prince Charles of "fear-mongering" and ETC Group of condemning poor nations to exports of "bananas and t-shirts." The authors speak enthusiastically about the potential of nanotechnology to improve conditions in the developing world and they express dismay that, in their view, "commentators" are now focusing primarily on risks instead of benefits. ETC Group responds.

BioPirates of the South China Sea: Captain Hook Awards Ceremony 2004

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Hook meets COPs at the UN's Biodiversity Convention in Malaysia Friday the 13th Awards for Outstanding Malchievements

The Coalition Against Biopiracy (CAB) will present its highly un-coveted Captain Hook Awards – for infamous and outstanding malchievements in biopiracy – at the Biodiversity Convention (CBD) in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Friday the 13th of February 2004. This is the third Global Biopiracy Awards ceremony since the Captain Hook awards were established in 1995. The previous awards were given out in ceremonies at the sixth meeting of the CBD (COP 6) in The Hague in 2002 and at the CBD's fifth meeting in Nairobi in 2000 (COP 5). The Coalition Against Biopiracy emphasizes that the Captain Hook Awards are a collaborative effort, made possible by the vigilance and analysis of many civil society and peoples’ movements around the world. This year, for the first time, the public was invited to make nominations by submitting claims along with full documentation to the CAB's web site at www.captainhookawards.org.

From Global Enclosure to Self Enclosure: Ten Years After - A Critique of the CBD and the "Bonn Guidelines" on Access and Benefit Sharing

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Since 1994, the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) has been promising "benefit sharing" to Indigenous Peoples in return for access to biodiversity (i.e., bioprospecting). During these ten years, Indigenous Peoples and farming communities have worked long and hard to realize this goal.

Oligopoly, Inc. - Concentration in Corporate Power: 2003

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Over half of the world's 100 largest economic entities are transnational corporations (TNCs), not nations. TNCs have unprecedented power to shape social, economic and trade policies. Corporate hegemony is usurping the role and responsibilities of national governments, threatening democracy and human rights. Over the past two decades ETC Group (formerly as RAFI) has monitored corporate power and trends in the "life sciences." Consolidation, technological convergence and non-merger corporate alliances are among the trends examined in this issue of ETC Communiqué.

Stop GM contamination!

An open letter to Mexican government authorities and intergovernmental bodies was sent, signed by 302 organizations from 56 countries, demanding actions to stop contamination of farmers' maize with DNA from genetically modified (GM) maize, and to prevent any further contamination in the world's centers of crop diversity and origin. The open letter, see "Open letter from international civil society organizations, News Release; November 19, 2003" asks the Mexican government to maintain the moratorium against the planting of transgenic maize in Mexico, stop the importation of transgenic or non-segregated maize - likely the main source of contamination in Mexico- and conduct urgent studies to determine the extent of the contamination.

Massive International Protest on GM Contamination of Mexican Maize

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An open letter to Mexican government authorities and intergovernmental bodies was sent today, signed by 302 organizations from 56 countries, demanding actions to stop contamination of farmers' maize with DNA from genetically modified (GM) maize, and to prevent any further contamination in the world's centers of crop diversity and origin.

Related Issues: 
Corporate Concentration
Patents & Biopiracy
Genomics & Biotechnology
Biodiversity & Cultural Diversity

Terminator Technology Debate Hijacked in Montreal

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Terminator – or genetic seed sterilization – has been on the agenda of the United Nations’ Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) for five years. If the Gene Giants and governments get their way, the CBD will be conducting studies on Terminator for years to come – long after suicide seeds are commercialized and show up in farmers’ fields.

At the ninth meeting of the CBD’s scientific advisory body (SBSTTA 9) held November 10-14 in Montreal, four governments – Canada, New Zealand, Argentina and Brazil – were allowed to highjack debate and stall action on Terminator by insisting that the CBD postpone consideration of an expert technical report on the impacts of genetic seed sterilization, arguing that the report lacks scientific rigor. While the report will be forwarded to next February’s Conference of the Parties (COP7) in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, it will go with a recommendation that COP7 forego action and re-direct the report to the next meeting of the scientific body (SBSTTA10) – in late 2004 or 2005 – with the aim of providing advice to COP8 in 2006!

Nanotech Meets the Environment

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Making a Mole Hill out of a Mountain?

ETC Group today (October 2003) released a 6-page Communiqué on the use of nanotechnology-based products in the environment - products that are coming to market in the absence of both government oversight and public discussion. A recent large-scale application of a product touted to control soil erosion using nanotechnology highlights regulatory inadequacies and lack of clarity in the nanotech industry.

Nanotechnology - whose best-known commercial successes have thus far been stain-resistant fabrics, stronger and lighter tennis rackets, and transparent sunscreens - has spawned new environmental products to prevent erosion or to clean up contaminated sites. While the companies claim these products will be beneficial to the ecosystem, in the absence of government regulatory oversight, the unknown short- and long-term implications raise concerns for health and for the environment.

Open letter from international civil society organizations on transgenic contamination in the centers of origin and diversity

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To the Mexican government and the international community:

On October 9, 2003, peasant farmers and indigenous communities, along with civil society organizations in Mexico, publicly released the initial results of their own testing that found GM contamination of native maize in at least nine Mexican states, even though the planting of transgenic maize is prohibited in Mexico. These results , which are part of ongoing studies, show far more serious and widespread contamination than previously assumed by earlier studies (e. g., the study by Berkeley scientists Chapela and Quist and one by the official Institute of Ecology in Mexico.

One alarming fact is that the communities found widespread contamination with Starlink maize (not approved for human consumption in the US and finally taken off the market) and contamination of single plants with up to three different transgenes, which may indicate that contamination has been occurring over several generations. All identified sequences are patented by one of the five multinationals that control the agricultural biotechnology industry.

Related Issues: 
Corporate Concentration

Maize Rage in Mexico: GM maize contamination in Mexico -- 2 years later

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On October 9, 2003, peasant farmers and indigenous communities along with civil society organizations in Mexico publicly released the results of their own testing of farmers' maize varieties and found GM contamination in at least nine states - far more serious and widespread than previously assumed.

Nine Mexican States found to be GM contaminated - Contamination by genetically modified maize in Mexico much worse than feared

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From: Indigenous and farming communities in Oaxaca, Puebla, Chihuahua, Veracruz, CECCAM, CENAMI, ETC Group, CASIFOP, UNOSJO, AJAGI

Mexico City, Mexico

* Contamination has been found in cornfields in the states of Chihuahua, Morelos, Durango, Mexico State, Puebla, Oaxaca, San Luis Potosí, Tlaxcala and Veracruz

* Analyses show contamination with the genetically modified (GM) variety Starlink, prohibited for human consumption in the United States

* Some plants found to show presence of two, three and four different GM types, all patented by transnational biotechnology corporations

Mulch ado about nothing?...Or the "Sand Witch?"

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Environmental use of “nanotechnology” highlights regulatory inadequacies and lack of clarity in the nanotech industry

Unique nanotechnology products and processes are entering large-scale use in the environment without regulatory oversight. Materials and processes approved at conventional scales (macro or micro) do not require re-examination when used at the nanoscale even though the impact on the ecosystem – including on biodiversity – could be radically different. A recent event on First Nations’ land in New Mexico using what appears to be a nanotech self-assembly process should be a warning to government and industry.

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