GE pine tree hearing postponed

GE pine tree hearing postponed

The GE pine tree hearing set down for 9th November shuold be postponed until the information supplied by the applicant is able to be properly considered.

The application is riddled with poor and misleading information that is not at all scientific and opens the country to serious environmental degradation.

The field trial is being applied to a secret site in Rotorua, previous secret sites have been found to be seriously in breach of their controls. It is a public right to know where trials are being conducted even if it is to keep the inspectors and trial operators honest.

How are 4000 trees going to be monitored in safety when 40 GE trees could not be properly looked after nor the facility fences kept secure?

The application is littered with erroneous and unscientific assertions, where it is projected that pine pollen only disperse for 300 mtrs. GE Free NZ has only just received a summary of data on Horizontal gene transfer (HGT) which was reported by the applicant as not occurring, however the data was so badly corrupted that no conclusions could be deduced and expert assesment was unable to make any evaluation at all. Is this why it was not submitted for scientific inspection with the application.

GE Free NZ wonder why ERMA has not picked up these annomolies in the evaluation and review reports of this application.

We hope that the hearing committee is not falling into the conflict of interest that caused the previous chair of the GE committee to resign or the latest revelation that the European Food Safety Authority chair has been on the boards of GE corporations. The conflicts that plague regulatory Authorities is not new but it severely compromises the protective role they have to play in looking after public good.

ENDS

Jon Carapiet
Susie Lees

References; EU food safety chief forced to quit GM lobby role

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