Expansion of Transgenic Seeds Stopped in Guatemala

[Judi Lynn]

Expansion of Transgenic Seeds Stopped in Guatemala

Guatemala, Jun 18 (Prensa Latina) Indigenous communities, ancestral authorities and social organizations celebrate today in Guatemala the suspension by the Constitutional Court (CC) of the agreement giving Green light to the expansion of genetically modified seeds.

This victory that much had to do with the work of deputy of the Winaq seats, Amilcar Pop, is considered by wide sectors as an important step in defense of natural resources and autochthonous seeds of the indigenous peoples of this Central American country.

The CC of Guatemala notified on Friday the provisional suspension of Decree 6-2014 Protocol of Nagoya (Japan, 2010), dealing with Access to genetic resources and equitable distribution of the benefits coming from its use.

This treaty is questioned by civil organizations and ancestral authorities for the procedure used in its approval in the Congress of the Republic, as a national urgency.

More:
http://www.plenglish.com//index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=4986961&Itemid=1

[NNadir]

1. It is really depressing when ignorant first worlders foist their ignorance on third world countries.

The result of other very, very, very, very ignorant anti-GMO efforts are writ large: The unnecessary blinding of children because of a lack of access to Golden Rice, often described in terms with which I agree as a A Crime Against Humanity.

The anti-GMO movement is exactly and precisely equivalent to the anti-vaccine movement; the export of the anti-vaccine movement by ignorant first worlders to the third world has prevented the complete elimination of polio.

Genetic transfer is a normal and frequently observed feature of life on earth, it has been going back to the time when the highest living things on the planet were slime molds. Genetic engineering is of course a directed exploitation of the same thing, but in terms of its genome effects it is not particularly different than breeding.

Important environmental issues and outcomes that will be rendered even more difficult because of anti-GMO appeals to ignorance vary from things as little known as the restoration of the American Chestnut forest, to the manufacture of important and vital drugs to cure diseases like cancer, and the effort to face what is sure to be an international food crisis under the rapid conditions of climate change.

Ignorance kills people, or, as is the case with Golden Rice, maims them.