[Pirateninfo] It's official!!! UN Upholds Moratorium onTerminator Seed Technology

[Gregor Kaiser]

Erfolg für Soziale Bewegungen und NGOs bei der Vertragsstaatenkonvention der
CBD:
Terminatortechnologie bleibt verboten.


Ban Terminator Campaign
News Release
31 March 2006
www.etcgroup.org
www.banterminator.org

UN Upholds Moratorium on Terminator Seed Technology
Worldwide Movement of Farmers, Indigenous Peoples
and Civil Society Organizations Calls for Ban

It's official. Governments at the United Nations Convention on
Biological Diversity (CBD) have unanimously upheld the international
de facto moratorium on Terminator technology - plants that are
genetically engineered to produce sterile seeds at harvest. The 8th
meeting of the CBD ended today in Curitiba, Brazil.

"The CBD has soundly rejected the efforts of Canada, Australia and
New Zealand - supported by the US government and the biotechnology
industry - to undermine the moratorium on suicide seeds," said Maria
Jose Guazzelli of Centro Ecologico, a Brazil-based agro-ecological
organization.

"By consensus decision, all governments have re-affirmed the
moratorium on a genetic engineering technology that threatens the
lives and livelihoods of 1.4 billion people who depend on farmer-
saved seed," said Pat Mooney, Executive Director of ETC Group.

Over the past two weeks, the call for a ban on sterile-seed
technology took center stage at the UN meeting in Brazil. Thousands
of peasant farmers, including those from Brazil's Landless Workers
Movement (Movimento Sem Terra) protested daily outside the UN meeting
to demand a ban, and the women of the international Via Campesina
movement of peasant farmers staged a powerful silent protest inside
the meeting on 23 March.

"Terminator seeds are genocide seeds," said Francisca Rodriguez from
Via Campesina, "We have pride in being one more step forward in our
struggle but we will not stop until Terminator is banned from the
face of the earth."

The CBD's moratorium on Terminator, adopted six years ago, was under
attack by three governments - Australia, Canada and New Zealand -
that insisted on a "case-by-case risk assessment" of the technology.
A broad coalition of farmers, social movements, Indigenous peoples
and civil society organizations pressed governments meeting in Brazil
to reject the controversial text because it threatened to open the
door to national-level field testing of Terminator, without regard
for its devastating social impacts.

On 23 March, Malaysia, speaking on behalf of the G77 and China
(together a group of 130 developing nations), said that the reference
to case-by-case risk assessment was "clearly unacceptable" because it
would potentially allow field tests. Today the CBD re-affirmed the
moratorium on Terminator and even strengthened it by making it clear
that any future research would only be conducted within the bounds of
the moratorium - meaning no field trials.

Leading up to the UN meeting, civil society groups and social
movements across the globe intensified their campaigns against
Terminator - sending a strong message to governments meeting in
Brazil. Actions include:

* In India, farmers collected over a half million signatures calling
on the Prime Minister to remain strong in defending the national ban
on Terminator and upholding the international moratorium;

* On 16 March, the European Parliament passed a resolution calling on
European governments to uphold the CBD moratorium and reject text on
"case by case;"

* On March 23, following extensive consultations, Indigenous
community leaders in Peru called on multinational company Syngenta to
abandon its Terminator-like patent on potatoes;

* In Madrid on March 23, anti-Terminator protesters planted local
varieties of organic vegetable seeds outside Monsanto's offices;

* Last week groups targeted those countries supporting Terminator
and, in addition to domestic letter-writing campaigns, protests were
held at the New Zealand embassies in London and New Delhi, and a
protest was held at the Canadian embassy in Berlin.

"The international moratorium on Terminator has been upheld - but the
battle isn't over yet. Terminator will be commercialized unless
national governments take action to ban it - as Brazil and India have
done," said Lucy Sharratt of the international Ban Terminator Campaign.

5000 peasant farmers protested today outside the UN conference to
send government delegates home with their message to protect Farmers'
Rights.


For further information:

Pat Mooney, ETC Group, mooney at etcgroup.org, +55 41 884 32014

Silvia Ribeiro, ETC Group, silvia at etcgroup.org, + 52 5555 6326 64

Hope Shand, ETC Group, hope at etcgroup.org, +1 919 960-5767

Kathy Jo Wetter, ETC Group, kjo at etcgroup.org, +1 919 960-5223
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