18 February 2002

FAO/STOTTY/DOWAGER/MOUTHWASH/FISCHLER/STARBUCKS

urls or shortened items (except FAO):
*Stotty and Lombo
*Dowager leads call to scrap GM trials
*GM Mouthwash 'Could Banish Tooth Decay'
*Fischler calls for end of "muddling-through policy"
*Starbucks braces for another round with eco-protests
*FAO Biotech NEWS & events

***

Stotty and Lombo: those well-known 'environmentalists'!

The ill wind blowing through energy policy
Simon Jenkins, The Times
February 15, 2002 [excerpt]

...But by refusing to grasp the nuclear nettle, the authors are left chasing the wind, literally. They do not say why the French are wrong. They do not answer the protests of environmentalists such as Bjorn Lomberg and Philip Stott, that the Kyoto targets would divert billions of dollars from more productive forms of global investment and conservation.

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Dowager leads call to scrap GM trials

http://hoovnews.hoovers.com/fp.asp?layout=displaynews&doc_id=NR20020217670.4_e67e0009f3a79b57
John Ross
The Scotsman [excerpt]

THE Dowager Countess of Cawdor, an organic farmer for more than 20 years, has called for the immediate scrapping of genetically modified  (GM) crop trials in Scotland.

She made the demand on the eve of a conference in Inverness today which will put the arguments both for and against GM technology.

..."I am most definitely against GM myself. It is incredibly dangerous. That is not to say that everything GM will always be bad, but at the moment things like the oilseed rape being trialled in the Black Isle are very dangerous. Pollution is almost a certainty."

Last year her opposition to GM threatened a split with her stepson, the seventh Earl, over plans to use the services of the Cawdor Estate's farming company to sow GM rape seed at a nearby farm.

***

GM Mouthwash 'Could Banish Tooth Decay'

http://news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm
The Scotsman
A genetically modified mouthwash has been developed which could effectively eliminate tooth decay, scientists ...

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Biotech: Farm Commissioner Fischler calls for end of "muddling-through policy"

http://europa.eu.int/rapid/start/cgi/guesten.ksh?p_action.gettxt=gt&doc=IP/02/244|0|RAPID&lg=EN&display=

***

UPDATE - Starbucks braces for another round with eco-protests

http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/14550/story.htm
USA: February 15, 2002 [excerpt]

(Reuters) SEATTLE - Facing mounting pressure from protest groups, Starbucks Corp. this week affirmed its commitment to environmentally friendly products and fair wages for coffee farmers.

Protesters will hand out fliers at Starbucks stores in six countries, including the United States, late this month and amass outside Starbucks' February

26 annual meeting for a second straight year to demand (GE) hormone-free milk and a stronger commitment to farmers.

***

FAO Biotech news and events

FAO Biotechnology website http://www.fao.org/biotech/index.asp

*** NEWS ***

1) Genomics and forest genetic diversity - FAO paper

An FAO Forest Genetic Resources Working Paper written by Konstantin Krutovskii and David Neale and entitled "Forest genomics for conserving adaptive genetic diversity" has recently been put on the web. It was prepared for the Forest Resources Development Service in FAO's Forest Resources Division. See <http://www.fao.org/DOCREP/003/X6884E/X6884E00.HTM>
or contact Forest-Genetic-Resources@fao.org to request a copy.

2) Report from Bangkok biotechnology conference

The final Rapporteurs' Report for the conference on 'New Biotechnology Food and Crops: Science, Safety and Society', that took place in Bangkok, Thailand, July 10-12, 2001, is now available (29 pages). The conference was co-sponsored by the OECD and the Government of the United Kingdom, in cooperation with FAO, WHO, UNEP, CBD and the Government of Thailand. See
http://www.oecd.org/pdf/M00025000/M00025559.pdf or contact icgb@oecd.org for more information.

3) IPR and biotechnology - UNIDO paper

A paper commissioned by the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) concerning Intellectual property rights (IPR) and biotechnology has been published recently in the free electronic journal "IP Strategies Today". The paper is by Anatole Krattiger and entitled
"Public-Private Partnerships for Efficient Proprietary Biotech Management and Transfer, and Increased Private Sector Investments". See http://binas.unido.org/binas/reviews/Krattiger.pdf or send an e-mail to subscribe@bioDevelopments.org to subscribe to the journal.

4) Review of Status of Aquaculture Genetics

The Technical Proceedings of the Conference on Aquaculture in the Third Millennium were published in June 2001 and have recently been put on the web. The conference was held in Bangkok, 20-25 February 2000, and organised by FAO and the Network of Aquaculture Centres in Asia-Pacific (NACA). The introduction states that "these Technical Proceedings represent the most comprehensive and authoritative review assembled to date of the status of aquaculture development in the world". Among the many interesting articles is one related to biotechnology in aquaculture entitled "Review of the status of aquaculture genetics" by Rex Dunham et al. It is available at
http://www.fao.org/DOCREP/003/AB412E/ab412e03.htm
 or a copy of the proceedings can be requested from the NACA Secretariat in Bangkok (publications@enaca.org) or from Dr Rohana Subasinghe
(rohana.subasinghe@fao.org), Senior Fishery Officer (Aquaculture) in Rome.

5) WHO and "Access to Research" initiative

As part of an initiative by the World Health Organisation (WHO) and leading medical journal publishers, it was announced on 31 January 2002 that more than 1,000 different journals in biomedical and related social sciences will be made freely available on the internet to public institutions in developing countries. Some of the journals are related to biotechnology in food and agriculture. This Health InterNetwork "Access to Research" Initiative is expected to last at least three years. Institutions in countries with GNP per capita below $1000 are eligible for free access to the literature. The institutions need computers connected to the internet with a high-speed link (56k baud rate or higher). See
http://www.healthinternetwork.org/src/eligibility.php or contact
hinari@who.int for more information.

*** EVENTS ***

August 25-29, 2002, Stará Lesná, Slovakia. International Union of Forest Research (IUFRO) Symposium on "Population and Evolutionary Genetics of Forest Tree Species" See http://alpha.tuzvo.sk/~paule/conference/
or contact paule@vsld.tuzvo.sk for more information.