We congratulate the Secretariat for all the work that went into developing the BCH.
We thank all Parties who are submitting the required documents, and who continue to do so.
The BCH allows us - as civil society - to participate in the decision-making processes as intended by Cartagena Protocol Article 23, as well as by the Convention and by of Rio's Principle 10.
But what concerns us is missing information on field trials. For two reasons:
First: Releases into the environments as part of a field trials can have an effect on the environment - no matter of whether they will be commercialized in future or not.
Second: in the past , we already have seen cases of unintended transboundary movement of LMOs that were only ever grown in field trials and - that were never commercialized.
For example in 2006 and 2007, GM rice that was not commercialized was nonetheless found in rice imports from the US to Europe. Cases like that will happen again.
Information about the first intentional transboundary movement of an LMO intended for field trials therefore is not an unnecessary exercise. Knowing about field trials is therefore also of importance for Article 17 on "Unintended Transboundary Movements and Emergency Measures." as discussed at this MOP.