GE FREE NORTHLAND Press Release

16 March 2011

SECRET GE PINE EXPERIMENTS AT ROTORUA SITE A THREAT TO NZ'S BIOSECURITY AND FORESTRY

GE Free Northland shares the concerns expressed by many New Zealanders about ERMA’s recent approval of Scion’s GE pine application for 4,000 GE pines, at secret sites at the Scion Rotorua property.

The Scion application contains information that is misleading and inaccurate. Implementation of this field trial would expose the country's economy and environment to serious risks.

Previous GE field trials by NZ Crown Research Institutes have been found to be in breach of the conditions of approval by ERMA. Given that Scion (despite public opposition) has used public funding for this risky GE experiment, it is even more important to know where GE trials are being conducted, to keep the inspectors and trial operators honest.

"GE pine pollen travels long distances and cannot be constrained to one known site, but the public must at least know where this site is, in order for them to be informed of risks and to be able to keep an eye on the GE trees."

"How are 4,000 trees going to be monitored in safety when previously 70 GE trees could not be properly looked after by Scion?" asked Martin Robinson, spokesperson for GE Free NZ (Northland).

An example of misleading information from Scion is their claim that pine pollen only disperses for 300 metres. However, a number of recent scientific publications have reported viable pine pollen spreading up to 60 kilometres.

Research published last year showed that pine pollen travels up to 41 kms in as little as 3 hours in moderate winds. At higher wind speeds pollen can travel this distance in 45 minutes, reaching altitudes of 610 metres.

Pine pollen remains viable for at least 24 hours. If the field trial were allowed, high winds would facilitate the spread of GE pollen far and wide. Pollen-producing structures have previously been identified on badly managed GE tree seedlings at Scion’s Rotorua site, so this possibility cannot be ruled out.

In addition, the GE process itself will alter tree’s growth patterns in totally unforeseen ways that could allow for unexpected pollen release.

GE Free Northland questions why ERMA has not picked up these anomalies in the evaluation and review reports of Scion’s latest application and taken action to decline it.

The conflicts that plague ERMA are not new, but severely compromise the protective role they are supposed to play in looking after NZ’s biosecurity and the public good.

Northland Regional Council Chairman Craig Brown comments:

"As far as I'm concerned, this flies in the face of reason, especially given the inherent difficulty of containing the GE pine pollen.

Based on Scion’s past practices, inevitable human error or sloppiness, and the unpredictability of GE organisms, the risk of transgenic contamination is high and a compelling reason for ERMA to have declined the application.

In addition to environmental/ biosecurity concerns, this GE experiment is a direct threat to New Zealand forests certified by the FSC (Forest Stewardship Council). The FSC prohibits the use of all GMOs in FSC certified forests.

Bay of Plenty Regional Council made a submission to ERMA stressing serious concerns about this particular GE application by Scion, and noting the precautionary GE policy put forward by BOPRC in its draft Regional Policy Statement. This strong precautionary GE policy would apply to the controls and use of any GMOs in the Bay of Plenty.

Northland Conservation Board also made a submission to ERMA, which notes with concern the fact that ERMA consistently has chosen to use its wide discretion under the HSNO Act regarding the precautionary approach, failing to take a precautionary approach to GE applications made to date.

Ongoing problems with and further deterioration of the performance of central government agencies including ERMA, MAF and NZ CRI’s is of huge concern to me.

Recent incidents involving GE experiments given by ERMA, have shown that the safeguards put in place are grossly inadequate. ERMA has not taken a precautionary approach to GMOs at all.

At this point, I have to say that I have little faith in the system, due to the poor track record of past ERMA decisions to allow GE experiments which resulted in biosecurity breaches and disturbing animal welfare issues, with large expenditure of public funds and no benefits whatsoever from the exercise."

-Northland Regional Council Chairman Craig Brown

ENDS

More information: GE FREE NORTHLAND

Chairperson, Zelka Grammer 09 432 2155

Spokesperson, Martin Robinson 09 407 8650

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