Dear participants,
Thanks to Kathryn to have left this discussion session open a little bit
longer !
I would indeed like to bring some last comments on this session, some of
them in response to last messages posted by other participants.
As already underlined by different participants, the socio-economic
considerations to take into account following Art. 26 of the Protocol
should be linked to impacts on biodiversity.
It could concern defined and probable impacts, but also potential
uncertain impacts.
This shows once more the importance of the transparency of the biosafety
risk assessment and conclusions, as said by some participants, and in
particular the importance of the treatment of uncertainties in the
biosafety risk assessment.
Linked to the socio-economic considerations, it is important, in the
framework of biosafety risk assesment, to have good guidance to decide
which potential impacts matter for biosafety impacts themselves; but
even if it is considered that some impacts do not matter for biosafety
concerns, they should be mentionned; because some potential impacts on
biodiversity could be considered as poorly important for biosafety
itself, but could matter a lot for socio-cultural reasons, for ex. The
same for uncertainties: some aspects of LMOs on biodiversity impacts (
indirect and at at long term ) can not be certainly predictable, at
least with present state of the art of ecosystem knowledge and
techniques; some uncertainties cannot be resolved by further
information, as said in the parallel forum on RA-RM guidance. But, these
uncertainties should not be masked, they should be mentionned in the
biosafety risk assessment, to allow to take decisions taking into
account the potential consequences, on biodiversity but also on the
linked socio-economic aspects, in case these uncertain risks occured;
and to have very serious monitoring systems, in case these LMOs are
authorized in the context of those uncertainties .
Concerning the need of transparency, it is indeed problematic if the
assessments are made only by notifiers and if no contradictory
evaluations can be made and considered.
Another comment in reaction to several messages posted by other
participants:
When considering socio-economic aspects linked to impacts on
biodiversity in relation to agricultural issues, one first question to
raise could be what is the agricultural problem to solve that has not
been solved till now, what is the fundamental cause of that problem, and
is the concerned LMO the best way to solve the problem. Because, if the
problem itself is mainly socio-culturo-economically driven than a
technical problem per se, maybe will the concerned LMO not fundamentaly
solve the problem and not bring a sustainable solution in the real
world.
Gregory Jaffe noticed that assessment of socio-economic impacts should
be applied not just to imported of LMOs but also to domestically
produced LMOs; this " for fairness reasons as well as compliance with
international laws and obligations". When talking about fairness and
compliance with some international agreeements, isn' t it possible to
interprate Art. 26 1. as meaning also that Parties could take into
account socio-economic considerations linked to impacts on biodiversity
in the exporting countries from which they import LMOs ??....
In a previous message, I suggested to add a.o. " economic impacts of
changes in land use ", in addition to various other socio-economic
elements already mentioned, by participants to the forum and by the list
proposed by the SCBD in its inquiry, as valuable to take into account.
By "economic impacts" I meant economic but also socio-economic impacts ,
some of which were actually already included in other elements suggested
in the list of the SCBD ( like labour and employement; economic impacts
in pest prevalence due to changes in farm management practices; economic
impacts of changes in application rates and effectiveness of pesticides
and herbicides ) . And by "changes in land use", I meant also "changes
in landscape architecture" .
I wanted thus obviously to also include in these" impacts of changes in
land use" a.o.: a) impacts on animal or human health ( physical and
psychological ) linked to changes in application of pesticides and
herbicides or other changes in farming practices or in
agro-environmental landscape; b) impacts on food security ( linked to
human health ), linked to food sovereignity; c) impacts on ecosystem
functionning .
Concerning impacts on "labour and employment", it should of course not
just be estimated quantitatively but also qualitatively. Linked to this
comment: my previous question concerning the implication of the
Conventions of the World Trade Organization, among the international
obligations to take into account.
Reminding that we have to consider other kinds of LMOs than plants, and,
for ex., LM insects ( like mosquitoes which are in development and have
already been released as trial by some countries ), we should also
mention : " socio-economic impacts of the appearance of new emergent
sicknesses or of the prevalence change in existing sicknesses, as
consequence of impacts ( including unforeseen ) of LM animals ( through
the food chain or other contact way ), among which insects, like
mosquitoes, able to play a vector role in the transmission of
thicknesses due to microorganisms, protozoans, etc... "
I would like to thank Ms. Nina Vik and Ms. Li Ching Lim for the answers
and examples they tried to bring to my questions on WTO practical
acceptance of "public morals" or "protection of exhaustible genetic
resources" as arguments to limit trade freedom.
Dr. Turrent, some of your concerns related to impacts on
agro-biodiversity ( in particular in centers of origin ) should be taken
into account in the revision of the RA guidance, following the present
discussion in this parallel forum organized by the SCBD.
With best regards.
Lucette Flandroy
P.S. : I have no practical experience in the substance of the next
session of the discussions and shall thus probably not intervene.
Disclaimer :
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