Lúcia Nórcio
Reporter - Agência Brasil

Curitiba - On Saturday (18), the civil society organizations that participated in the Brazilian Forum of NGOs and Social Movements for the Environment and Development issued a document manifesting support for the decision by the Brazilian government to defend the use of the term "contains" to identify products containing living genetically modified organisms.

The Forum took place in Curitiba concomitantly with the 3rd Meeting of the Parties to the Cartagena Biosecurity Protocol (MOP-3). According to the participants, biosecurity took center stage in the debates, restoring the objectives of the Cartagena Protocol.

In their view, the position taken by president Lula represents a big advance in relation to the position defended a year ago at the MOP-2, in Montreal, when Brazil was in favor of countries' using the expression "may contain" to label transgenic products.

The shift to "contains" was announced last Monday (13) after a meeting in Brasília between president Lula, the ministers of Agriculture, Roberto Rodrigues, and Environment, Marina Silva, and the presidential chief of staff, minister Dilma Rousseff.

For Greenpeace director of Government Policies, Sérgio Leitão, the announcement means that Brazil took a stand on behalf of life, biodiversity, and food security. "It marks the day when the country decided to give priority to national interests, frequently at odds with the interests of the large biotechnology companies that restrict the right of Brazilian consumers to choose whether or not to consume genetically modified food," Leitão judges.

The coordinator of the Land of Rights movement, Maria Rita Reis, said she is relieved over the stance taken by the Brazilian government. She said that, up to this point, the discussions at the official meeting had focused on purely commercial aspects. "With the government taking this position, biosecurity will finally come to the forefront of the debates on implementing the Cartagena Protocol," the activist believes.

Nevertheless, the NGOs are still critical about the four-year deadline proposed for adopting the new rule. In their note, the organizations recall that the negotiations have already been underway for five years. This should clearly suggest "that the transition period for exporters of transgenics to adapt has already passed."

Translation: David Silberstein