Press ReleaseOctober 28t, 2009

Coordination Paysanne Européenne - CPE (now known as European Coordination Via Campesina - ECVC)
Development Fund
LI-Bird
Berne Declaration
Searice
Third World Network
Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL)

On 21st October 2009, the Consultative Committee of the International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants (UPOV) rejected the application by the Association of Plant Breeding for the Benefit of Society (APREBES) and the European Coordination Via Campesina (known before as CPE) for observer status in UPOV Bodies

Press release from the civil society

Civil Society Press Release - International Treaty on Genetic Plant Resources for Food and Agriculture
(Tunis, 2 June 2009) The FAO Plant Treaty’s mechanism for sharing the benefits derived from the access to plant genetic resources is a shameful failure.

The treaty foresees that when a commercial product is derived from the use of the genetic resources that are part of the treaty, 1.1 percent of sales ought to be paid to the Treaty’s Benefit Sharing Fund.

However, in the opening ceremony of the third Governing Body session yesterday in Carthage, Tunisia, a pitiful 250.000 dollars was given to projects supposed to benefit farmers, recognized by the global community as the main producers and conservers of the diversity of all the worlds’ food. Moreover, the bulk of these funds went to governmental and non-governmental institutes.

PRESS RELEASE

En route to the twin summits at the end of the year— the food crisis summit in Rome in November, and the climate crisis summit to be held in Copenhagen in December— the meeting of the FAO Seed Treaty (ITPGRFA) is at the critical nexus of the international community’s ability to respond to the food and climate crises.

“If we don’t safeguard our seed diversity and implement peasants’ rights, then the global agricultural system won’t be able to respond to rapidly changing climatic conditions,” said Adam Kuleij, Massai pastoralist from Tanzania.

Large scale cultivation of transgenic crops in the European Union over the past 10 years has only taken place in Spain. GM farming in Spain has been and is characterized by a complete lack of control and transparency. No one knows where these crops are, no one assesses the damage they cause and no one accepts any responsibilities.

Many European countries have forbidden the cultivation of transgenic maize: France, Austria, Luxembourg, Greece, Hungary… and just a few days ago, Germany. These countries have based their ban of this transgenic maize on scientific evidence regarding negative impacts in the environment, lack of knowledge regarding impacts on human and animal health, and the certainty that protecting organic and conventional farming from transgenic contamination is impossible.

Lunes 16 de marzo de 2009

As extreme industrialization and capitalist overproduction demands the exploitation of more water resources everyday, access to water resources has become a major source of political conflict. States, multinational corporations and private interest groups established World Water Council (WWC) to commodify and commercialize water resources, and to maximize potential profit. As it is known, World Water Council is an intergovernmental institution that is sponsored and supported by multinational corporations. Yet it is the World Bank and water monopolies which are dominant in the Council, and the Council is striving to ensure that the logic of profit is determining the direction of water`s flow.