UN Upholds Moratorium on Terminator Seed Technology - March 31, 2006  
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Worldwide Movement of Farmers, Indigenous Peoples and Civil Society  
Organizations Calls for Ban - Join the Ban Terminator Campaign

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 Ecológico, 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 Rodríguez 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.

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Ban Terminator Action Alerts Canada
contact@banterminator.org
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