Opening Statements at COP8 a Call to Defend Life

1. The International Indigenous Forum on Biodiversity
2. Youth Statement
3. Elders of the Guambiano People, Columbia

1. The International Indigenous Forum on Biodiversity statement:

Thanks Mr. Chairman.

We, Indigenous peoples, along the history of times have used, enhanced and exchanged our seed, maintaining our traditional knowledge and providing humankind with different kinds of staples, like potato, maize and quinoa, just to name a few. Therefore we call on the Parties for the recognition of rights over seeds and genetic resources preserved and developed by us thousands of years ago.

Mr. Chairman, We are against GURTs field trials and commercialization because we consider it a violation of our rights and a direct threat to our livelihoods and food sovereignty, making our communities even poorer, damaging the health of our women and children.

No doubt, field trials and commercialization of GURTS impose tangible dangers to our traditional knowledge, therefore the risk of total disappearance of our cultures. The CBD has its fundamental principle in Article 3, “States have, in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations and the principles of international law, the sovereign right to exploit their own resources pursuant to their own environmental policies, and the responsibility to ensure that activities within their jurisdiction or control do not cause damage to the environment of other States or of areas beyond the limits of national jurisdiction.”

Therefore risk assessment case by case means that the Parties to the Convention will not meet their obligations as stated in Article 3. Therefore, Indigenous Peoples make a call to the Parties to confirm the de facto moratorium stated in Decision V/5 paragraph 23 and make effective the precautionary principle.

All analysis and assessments regarding this technology have concluded that GURTS negatively affect:
1. Traditional seed exchange systems that ensure our food sovereignty
2. Our traditional knowledge, ancestral wisdomry, innovation practices and
systems through which we have domesticated the vast majority of crops that
are today key for global food security and are the genetic basis for modern
agriculture, and
3. Our cultural and spiritual values associated to seeds, basic for
maintaining our culture.

We urgently ask the Parties to:

1) Recognize the very serious implications of the potential negative impacts of GURTS on Indigenous Peoples as reflected in the AHTEG Report, and in several submissions regarding the potential social, economic and cultural impacts of GURTS on Indigenous Peoples;
2) Give the Working Group on 8j the mandate to make a permanent revision and give the to the IIFB and to the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues consulting status over any future consideration of GURTS;
3) As stated in the AHTEG Report, the Parties that have not yet done so, must develop national regulatory frameworks in order to ban the field trials and commercialization of GURTs;
4) CBD Parties should ensure the full and effective participation of the Indigenous Peoples in all the future processes related to GURTS, and
5) Should back up the efforts of the Indigenous Peoples to develop and spread didactic materials on GURTs and its cultural, social, economic and spiritual impacts on Indigenous Peoples.

Mr. Chairman,

Indigenous Peoples of the world make the utmost urgent call to the Parties for

Strengthening of Decision V/5 without exceptions and erase paragraph 2(b), written in the recommendation made during the Fourth Meeting of Working Group no 8j.

Finally, regarding a decision project, the FIIB will present proposals on the subject.

Thanks Mr. Chairman

2. Youth Statement

Delivered by Kathleen Tompkins

(The youth statement was the product of extensive consultation with youth networks represented at the CBD meetings. It was read by Kathleen Tompkins and calls for a permanent global moratorium against terminator.

The full text of the youth statement follows - for more information visit the youth COP8 blog at wheredidmygenesgo.org )

Thank you very much Mr. Chairman,

On behalf of the youth present at this Conference, we wish to express our sincere concern that this body is again considering the issue of Genetic Use Restriction Technologies. We can not understand why a Convention whose aim is to protect biodiversity is even considering allowing the testing of a technology that by definition strives to do the opposite. The aim of GURTs is to prevent the reproduction of an organism. This is in direct conflict with the objectives of the CBD. There is no scientific evidence that this technology should or can be benignly released into a dynamic living ecosystem, and the potential negative social impacts on humanity are appalling. We are not here to make an emotional statement, but to make a plea for rationality. We remind you that the UN technical expert group report on GURTs (UNEP/CBD/WG8J/4/INF/17) outlined the inherent risk of GURTS, concluding that gene silencing, mutations, unstable promoters and induction systems could all lead to transgene escape with devastating consequences. We urge you to reaffirm, and above all, strengthen the de facto moratorium created during the COP5. We urge you to value biodiversity and human livelihoods over profit-driven industrial interest. We urge you to allow future generations to access traditional and indigenous knowledge. We proclaim that "case-by-case" is unacceptable. We urge you to reject the danguerous argument that GURTS can be used as a tool for biological security. GURTs is not a technology to protect biological diversity, but to protect the patents of the industry. We further wish to remind the COP that the GURTS issue does not belong in the Cartegena protocol, as industry lobbyists would like us to believe. As GURTS poses a threat of great magnitude to the world's biodiversity, the CBD is the perfect forum to discuss the issue. A full moratorium is the only acceptable solution.

The promises of industrial agrotechnology have disillusioned us. Their presumed solutions have always created more problems than they have solved. GURTs is only the most recent and severe example. This technology could have tremendous negative implications for the future of food sovereignty, traditional knowledge, and biodiversity. This is our future, and we refuse to accept these risks. As we will inherit the future being determined here, we have a major stake in these negotiations. You have called on the youth to participate and we are here. We answer your call using not our wallets and a short-sighted economic greed, but rather with our minds, our logic, and our hearts. We trust that the delegates here will use these same tools when making their decisions. Please take a step forward towards the safety of our world's people, cultures, and biodiversity and reaffirm the ban on terminator technology. Thank you very much Mr Chair.

3. Elders of the Guambiano People, Columbia:

El pueblo Misak (Guambiano) de Silvia Cauca – Colombia se solidariza con los defensores de los Pueblos y Nacionalidades indígenas del mundo que luchan en defensa de los recursos naturales y la biodiversidad que hace parte de nuestros usos y costumbres en los procesos culturales cotidianos de las nacionalidades ancestrales. Y rechazamos totalmente la aplicación del desarrollo biotecnológico a través de la bioprospección, la biopiratería, la ognopiratería a favor de las multinacionales, e igualmente rechazamos la introducción de genes TERMINATOR, transgénicos, tecnologías y normas que restringen el derecho de poseer nuestra biodiversidad alimentaria, medicinal, ornamental, maderable entre otras, los científicos y multinacionales entran a robar los productos y derivados que hemos desarrollado milenariamente donde explotan inmisericordementre nuestras riquezas con sus registros y patentes aduciendo que están realizando investigaciones e innovaciones y hallazgos a nombre de nuestro trabajo. Nosotros los pueblos ancestrales del departamento del Cauca organizados con nuestras autoridades solicitamos enfáticamente se mantenga la MORATORIA relacionados con las pretensiones de los de los países miembros del CDB para decidir sobre nuestra biodiversidad y conocimientos ancestrales que hemos mantenido por más de 30 mil años, ya que constituyen patrimonio de nuestros pueblos y que los gobiernos de turno de nuestros países toman decisiones y atribuciones arbitrarios violando nuestra constitución y derechos especiales que nos corresponde milenariamente. Exigimos a todos los gobiernos y organismos internacionales prohibir estas tecnologías y prácticas antihumanas, no éticas, y las decisiones que se tomen deben ser realmente concertadas, consultadas y con consentimiento previo voluntario ya que se trata de nuestra biodiversidad y conocimiento, exigimos respeto a nuestros derechos que nos pertenece y como deber defenderemos con toda la fuerza de la gente para evitar el ingreso de extraños a nuestros territorios.