Cartagena Protocol MOP7
CBD Meetings in Korea
28 Sep 2014: Several Ecoropa members are attending the CBD meetings in Korea: starting with MOP7 of the Cartagena Protocol, followed by COP12 of the Biodiversity Convention, and - paralell with it - the first MOP of the Nagoya Protocol on Access and Benefit Sharing, which comes into force right in the middel of the meetings on 12 October. The Ecoropa members Christine von Weizsäcker, Ricarda Steinbrecher, Antje Lorch, Helena Paul and Hartmut Meyer - in different functions - work on a range of issues during the meeting as well as edit the daily NGO newsletter ECO. Articles and... Read moreIs the CBD losing the plot..?
30 Sep 2014: Looking at the agenda of COP/MOP7 and COP12, one wonders if the CBD is losing the plot… and the field, the farm, the pastures, the forests, the fisheries... The lack of explicit focus on actions to sustain biodiversity in the human managed environment – the agricultural biodiversity that dominates terrestrial biomes and is vital in coastal waters – is an indictment of the governance of the Convention and its Protocols. It could be otherwise if the agenda were to be set by the small-scale food providers who feed more than 70% of the world’s population using their... Read moreIntervention on BCH
30 Sep 2014: 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... Read moreIntervention on Article 18: Handling, packaging, transport & identification of LMOs
30 Sep 2014: Decision BS-3/10 - Article 18 - para 4 (a) and (b) describes what should be done in case the identity of an LMO-FFP is either known or not known. It is based on the understanding that - for the sake of Biosafety - Parties want to know the identity of LMO-FFPs in transboundary movement and want to share this with other Parties. What we now find that exporters can choose "not to know" "May contain" can - and is - now used to simply include all LMOs of that crop grown in that country, with no intention to determine which LMOs are in fact in a shipment. This puts... Read moreStrengthening the relationship between the Cartagena Protocol and the Aarhus Convention is a mutual task
30 Sep 2014: The 167 Parties to the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety gathered here this week, share goals and ambitious plans, among them the commitment to public participation in decision making (article 23). And yet, some Parties are stopping an biosafety-related important amendment to another convention from coming into force: the GMO amendment to the Aarhus Convention. The Aarhus Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation and Accesss to Justice in Environmental Matters has been ratified by 47 UNECE countries, committing themselves to a far reaching implementation of... Read moreArticle 17: Unintentional transboundary movements and emergency measures
1 Oct 2014: NGO intervention on behalf of Ecoropa and many of the civil society organizations present at MOP7 A prerequisite to take appropriate measures on unintentional transboundary movements is the capacity to detect and identify LMOs in an accurate and efficient manner. Speedy responses are needed. The Strategic Plan, under its operational objectives 1.6, 1.8, and 2.3, specifies the necessary outcomes of the work on our agenda item. Development of easy to use and reliable technical tools for the detection of unauthorized LMOs and personnel trained and equipped for... Read moreSeptember 2014 to October 2014
Seventh Meeting of the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety in Pyeongchang, Korea