15 October 2009 - Brussels,
Belgium — From the paddy fields of Thailand,
62-year old rice farmer Samnieng Huadlim
joined Spanish
and Swedish farmers in Brussels to present
the EU Commissioner for Health Androulla
Vassiliou with our 180,000-signature-strong
petition against potential legislation authorising
the introduction of GE rice; along with
a selection of delicious organic tapas.
Both from Albacete in
Spain, Fernando José Llobell Bisbal,
president of the association of organic
consumers 'La Tierrallana' and Eduardo Campayo
García, an organic farmer like Peter
Nilsson from Kristianstad in Sweden, are
worried about the future of their livelihoods.
While agri-chemical giants like BASF, Monsanto
and Bayer ratchet up the pressure on Brussels
to allow genetically engineered (GE) crops,
farmers, campaigners and food-lovers everywhere
are saying "no to GE".
Fernando José
Llobell Bisbalborn from Albacete, Spain.
Since 2002 he has been President of the
La Tierrallana, the association of Organic
Consumers in Albacete. “I want my government
to prohibit the production, distribution,
export and import of genetically engineered
food until we have a proper and independent
evaluation of its risks to human health
and its impacts on the environment.”
With their personal
accounts from the field, documented in a
Greenpeace report "Testimonies of Contamination",
the farmers shed light on some of the disastrous
consequences of GE contamination, as well
as promoting the benefits of switching to
organic and ecological agriculture.
Sustainable agriculture
or bust
Mrs. Samnieng Huadlim preparing organic
rice seedlings for the Greenpeace 'rice
art' project in Thailand.
Ecological farming produces nutritionally
rich and chemical-free food, at the same
time as protecting biodiversity and nutrient-rich
soils. In contrast, the heavy use of chemical
herbicides required for GE and conventional
agriculture is damaging to crops and the
environment.
But that's not all. As Samnieng Huadlim
explained, from her life-long experience
as a rice farmer in Thailand, becoming dependent
on chemical herbicides not only banished
the earth worms from her field; it also
drove her into insurmountable debt.
Switching to organic
farming has only led to benefits for Ms.
Huadlim. Peter Nilsson, who grows organic
potatoes and broccoli among other things,
also found that turning to organic brought
him better yields. For him, farming is about
working with nature, not against it.
Detail view of organic potatoes grown in
Peter Nilsson's farm. He and his family
have a dairy herd of about 80 cows and 125
hectares of grazing and cropping land. Since
2002, all their farm produce is certified
as organic under KRAV (the Swedish organic
label).
However, if new legislation
allows the approval of GE crops, it poses
a serious threat to organic farmers, via
contamination. "Organic maize may disappear
because of GE crops. My experience with
maize is that pollen travels more than the
Spanish Agriculture Ministry’s studies say
it does, and maize is contaminated much
more often than reported. In my case, the
closest maize is 500 metres from my field
- it is not GE, nevertheless my crop has
been contaminated" explained Eduardo
Campayo García. After finding out
his produce was contaminated, Mr Campayo
Garcia had to cover the costs of recalling
it from the buyer himself.
Our organic breakfast
petition comes as part of an ongoing campaign
against the authorisation within the EU
of Bayer's genetically engineered GE rice,
known as LL62, one of the products bio-tech
corporations like Bayer have been lobbying
hard to see allowed. Others include BASF's
GE potato and Monsanto's MON810 GE maize.
Eduardo Campayo García,
organic farmer born in 1961 in Albacete,
Spain. Eduardo and his family switched to
organic farming 12 years ago. He produces
maize, alfalfa, peas, potatoes, wheat and
wine.
Read the Greenpeace report on herbicide
resistant rice, "Bayer's Double Trouble."
As the world famous
Ifugao rice terrace in the Philippines,
a UNESCO world heritage site, was declared
GE free in March earlier this year, Greenpeace
volunteers in Thailand planted the first
'Rice Art' project, as a celebration of
Southeast Asia's long heritage of rice cultivation,
and to raise awareness about the importance
of this staple crop, on which so many of
the world's population depend.
GE is not the answer
Contrary to suggestions that GE crops will
help to mitigate the impacts of climate
change, a study on GE soya showed that the
modified plants needed 2-5 times more herbicides;
a boon for the companies who make both the
seeds and the herbicides.
The current industrial
farming system, which is dependent on fossil
fuels and chemical inputs and gives scant
regard to common goods, is not sustainable
from an environmental, economic and social
point of view.
The costly development
of technologies like GE as 'solutions' to
world hunger or climate change, mask their
real socio-economic, environmental and political
causes.
"Farmers are rejecting
GE crops and are turning to ecological farming.
They do not want to be at the mercy of bullying
multinationals that are threatening to take
control of our food," says Greenpeace's
EU agricultural policy director, Mark Contiero.
By signing the petition against GE rice,
"people have shown that they do not
want GE food on their plates." Contrary
to the picture created by the legislation
- that agricultural land can be neatly divided
into GE here and organic there, nature undermines
this; no legal borders will prevent the
carriage of GE seed in the wind, and as
it blows, it takes from farmers and consumers
the choice about what they eat and who they
buy it from.
+ More
Greenpeace staff member
wins alternative Nobel Prize
13 October 2009 - Kinshasa,
Congo, The Democratic Republic of the —
We are thrilled to announce that one of
our staff members, René Ngongo, has
today been named a recipient of the 2009
Right Livelihood award.
Inspired man, inspiring
action
René Ngongo has
been working closely with Greenpeace to
save the Congo Basin Forests (the second
largest tropical forest after the Amazon)
since 2004, first in his capacity as head
of OCEAN and now as Political Advisor for
Greenpeace Africa when he led the opening
of our first office in the Democratic Republic
of Congo (DRC).
His life story is an
inspiring one. He grew up in Congo, near
the Virunga National Park – a truly unique
area with outstanding biodiversity which
is included on UNESCO’s list of World Heritage
in Danger. It was in these forests that
he started to dream about becoming a Conservationist.
He studied biology in the Kinsagani University
where he also worked for several years.
René also founded the highly-regarded
Congolese NGO “OCEAN” (Organisation concertée
des écologistes et amis de la nature),
which often served as a mediator between
forest communities and key stakeholders.
Protecting the Congo
Forest
As part of his work
to protect the Congo Basin Forest from industrial
loggers, René actively developed
grassroots solutions and local contacts
in remote villages. This infrastructure
soon became the basis for educational activities
on deforestation/reforestation and general
environmental awareness building. Between
1994 and 2002, René developed tools
to fight “slash and burn” agriculture. Among
these tools were demonstration fields in
Kisangani that showed local people possible
alternative agricultural techniques. These
allowed to diminish the pressure on the
forests and provide better income alternatives
to local farmers.
René coordinated
the creation of a seedling plantation (20,000
seedlings) of the most exploited tree species
in the Eastern province. This plantation
provided trees for several 'green city'
events. During these 'green city' (Ville
Verte) events, trees were planted in abandoned
parks, along avenues and in schools.
Staying
The act of staying when
you can leave is one of the most powerful
things a person can do. During the brutal
war that tore through Congo between 1996
and 2002, René didn't stop his efforts.
He was one of luckier people who could have
simply left the country, because of his
network of friends outside Congo. Instead,
he chose to stay.
He monitored the use
of natural resources by the different waring
groups. During one of his 'green city' tree
planting events on the outskirts of Kisangani,
the war between Ugandan and Rwandan troops
started. René and his invited guests
had to search for cover from the artillery
battle that suddenly started in the neighbourhood.
Fighting against destructive
logging
Today that the DRC has
returned to “relative” peace, more than
ever, the country’s intact forests are threatened
by large scale industrial projects such
as logging. Despite a World Bank sponsored
“reform” and a moratorium on new logging
concessions that has been launched 7 years
ago, companies continue to exploit the forest
with impunity.
Poorly – if at all -
paid and unequipped local control agents
are unable to protect the massive old trees
that are being logged and shipped to Europe
and other international markets. But people
like René continue the struggle against
ecological destruction and social injustice.
In his own words “Our forests are our livelihoods.
They cannot be reduced to a cheap export
commodity. For millions of people, the forests
are their supermarket, their pharmacy, and
the foundation of spiritual and physical
health.”
Forests are also vital for our global climate.
Around 20 percent of global greenhouse gas
emissions stem from deforestation. In January
2009, the government concluded a legal review
of 156 logging titles, and deemed 91 of
them illegal. Despite this, some of the
companies who have been not been validated
continue logging today. Rene insists: “We
have alternatives. We don’t need to sell
our forests for meager short term profits.
We know today that our forests are worth
more standing then logged, this is why we
need a strong agreement and support for
a global financial mechanism to reduce emissions
and to end deforestation.”
Alternative Nobel Prize
The Right Livelihood
Award is also known as the alternative Nobel
Prize. It honours those offering practical
and exemplary answers to the most urgent
challenges facing us today. Several winners
are announced every year and receive the
prize in early December. We are beyond happy
that Rene is one of them.
René's entire
work is recgonised by the Right Livelihood
Award Foundation today: "Since 1994,
including through the civil war from 1996-2002,
René Ngongo has engaged, at great
personal risk, in popular campaigning, political
advocacy and practical initiatives to confront
the destroyers of the rainforest and help
create the political conditions that could
halt its destruction and bring about its
conservation and sustainable use."
Welcoming the award,
Greenpeace International Executive Director
Gerd Leipold said: "While we hope President
Obama turns his Nobel Peace Prize into real
action for climate protection at this December's
United Nations climate conference in Copenhagen,
it is people like Rene Ngongo who have already
started the heavy lifting. People like René
are the real climate leaders and it is good
to know that at the very least one climate
hero will be honored in Scandinavia this
December."
