Lúcia Nórcio and Patrícia Landim
Reporters - Agencia Brasil

Curitiba – Outside the Expo Trade Convention Center, which is holding the 3rd Meeting of the Parties to the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety (MOP-3), approximately 700 members of Brazilian social movements are gathered in the Global Civil Society Forum. This is a parallel event to the MOP-3 and to the 8th Meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (COP-8), and will end on March 31st.

According to the Executive Manager of the Brazilian Forum of Non-Governmental Organizations and Social Movements for the Environment and Development (FBOMs), Ester Neuhaus, the Global Civil Society Forum intends to attract the attention to several issues such as the unsustainable production and consumption model that aims at exporting through the monoculture of soy and eucalyptus for cellulose production; biopiracy problems; unsustainable energy production that threatens biodiversity; the consequences of water pollution; the conflict between protected areas and traditional communities.

Neuhaus adds that several entities that have created networks on Brazilian biomes will also be present to discuss issues concerning the Amazon, the savanna, Atlantic forest, and the coastal area.

In addition to the debates, there will be a biodiversity fair. The idea, according to Gabriel Fernandes, who also participates in the forum organization, is to translate to the population what is being discussed in the official meetings, and the impacts on Brazilian agriculture and society. The fair is being organized by family agriculture farmers that work only with ecological agriculture in several parts of the country. They will bring samples of seeds of traditional varieties they cultivate, to show they do survive without using transgenic products – the main discussion this week at the MOP-3.

"Farmers who do not want to grow transgenic products are creating different ways of resistance and will not plant, nor consume genetically modified organisms in these areas," said Fernandes. He informed that in Europe there are already 1500 areas that follow these criteria.

Translation: Andréa Alves