GMO Free Europe Newsletter

Friends of the Earth has updated its GMO Free Europe Newsletter. Find out more.

17.05.2005 |Sabine Brückmann

GMO-free Europe Newsletter No.1

May 2005

This newsletter is the first update from GMO Free Europe. It is intended to keep you up to date with the campaign, give you news updates on GMO Free areas and the GMO Free petition, share campaigning ideas, and provide updates on new resources and other information. If you have any campaign news that you would like to share with other groups in Europe, please email Kenneth Richter at kenr@foe.co.uk <mailto:lizw@foe.co.uk> mentioning you would like it to go in the GMO Free Europe newsletter.

GMO-Free Areas Petition - News

The GMO-free areas petition was launched this year by a coalition of organisations from twenty European countries and it is supported by the Assembly of European Regions. It calls on the European Commission to adopt legal measures allowing local and regional governments to protect their traditional and organic agriculture from GM crops, and to allow local communities to decide whether GM crops should be grown in their areas. The aim of the petition is to demonstrate the strong political will supporting the GMO Free areas movement to the Commission by getting politicians and local/regional governments to sign up.

At the end of this year, the European Commission will be reviewing national coexistence measures, and deliberating EU-wide legislation for the growing of GM crops. This new legislation provides a unique opportunity to get legal protection for GMO-free areas written into EU law. The GM Free petition will be extremely influential in these deliberations, coming as it does from politicians themselves. But we have to act urgently; the petition will have to be handed in before the Commission makes any major decisions if it is to have any effect. If we miss this opportunity then GMO-free areas will remain merely an aspiration without any legal protection!
We’ve got off to a good start: collection of signatures for the “GMO-free regions and local areas petition to the European Commission” is now in full swing. So far we have the following signatures on paper:

Italy: 1 from the region of Marche
Belgium: 11 from several local authorities
UK: 30 mainly from parliamentary representatives.
Germany: 3
Poland: 22 (including the Malopolska region)
Netherlands: 1
Switzerland: 1
Georgia: 5
Albania: 1

But we need to get many more signatures by the end of the year!
It is key that the majority of signatures come from local/regional authorities themselves. This will give the petition its unique weight with the Commission. The priority for getting signatures should therefore be firstly from local/regional authorities, then Members of the National Parliament (who represent their area), then Members of the European Parliament and only as a last option NGOs.

GM Free petition - resources

The text of the petition is now available in 10 languages from the website. There are also now MS Word versions of the petition, making it easier to edit your own version of it: e.g. if you want to add your address as returning address or if you want to add your logo.

GM0 Free Areas - News:

The amazing momentum of the GMO Free Europe campaign continues:

Poland

There are now nine GMO free regions in Poland (now covering two thirds of Poland's territory and population) and a further two are in the process of passing a declaration. The latest region was the Pomorskie Province with a population of 2.2 million and an area of 18,000 sq km.
See the Friends of the Earth website for more information.

Italy

The Italian Constitutional Court has rejected the appeal of the Italian government against two GMO-free laws of the regions of Marches and Puglia.
See Agi News, and Agi News.

Ireland

One thousand GMO-Free Zones were declared throughout the island of Ireland -- on 22nd April, Earth Day 2005 -- by farmers, food producers, hotels, restaurants, markets, pubs, retailers, and homes North and South of the border.
See http://www.foeeurope.org/GMOs/gmofree/countries/Ireland.htm

Hungary

The council of Esztergom (in North Hungary) has approved the proposal to become a GMO-free zone. This was pushed through by the Esztergom Environmental Culture Association (EKOKU). Esztergom is important since this is the biggest town of the more than 30 GMO-free towns/villages in Hungary, and is also a historical place with the seat of the Hungarian Catholic Church.

Cyprus

The Cyprus Federation of Environmental and Ecological organisations organised a workshop for mayors and other local authority officials to encourage local authorities and consequently communities and municipalities to declare themselves GMO-free areas. Many mayors responded to this invitation and the Minister of Agriculture, Natural Recourses and the Environment, the president of the Environment Parliamentary Committee and the president of the Municipalities Association were present and all gave a short speech. The workshop had guest speakers from Greece, who came to share their experiences. Their contribution was invaluable as Greece has now been declared a GMO-free area in its entirety as a result of the initiative of local authorities, citizen groups and NGOs.

Portugal

In Portugal the city of Mora was declared GMO-Free. The local council approved a long declaration, including a total ban on GMOs.

International

The movement is by no means restricted to Europe:
In India the “GMO free zone India"–project was launched in April. According to Vandana Shiva of Delhi-based environmental group Navdanya: ''In India, thousands of villages have already taken pledge not to plant GM seeds.”

The council of Paraiso de Cartago declared the first GMO-free area of Costa Rica on March 28th.

More GMO-free areas have recently sprung up in Canada (e.g. Powell River), and Argentina (e.g. San Marcos Sierras).
Marin County and Menocino County are two examples that even in the US areas are banning GMOs on their territory. http://www.organicconsumers.org/ge-free.htm