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Thank you, Mikal, for the alert. I have
spread it here in Brazil to the Green Party and friends in other
government agricultural agencies. It is just what we need- a
new, genetically manipulated strain of Fusiarium...
Marsha
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Wednesday, May 31, 2000 4:12
PM
Hi,
Thought I'd forward this...just in case anyone was
having too nice a day. Ghastly, ghastly, ghastly!
<< May
2000
ALARM OVER U.S. FUNGUS EXPERIMENTS ABROAD
US experiments in
Southern countries using microbial fungus to
eradicate narcotic crops have
raised great concern over the
effects on human health, the environment and
legitimate crops.
This microbial fungus use is prohibited in the United
States
itself.
By Chakravarthi Raghavan
Third World Network
Features
Geneva: An international non-profit group has called on
the
Conference of Parties (COP) to the UN Convention on
Biodiversity (CBD),
meeting in Nairobi on 15-26 May, to act to
halt experiments abroad by the
United States to use 'Agent
Green' microbes to kill narcotic crops.
In
a briefing paper for delegates to the 5th COP meeting,
the 'Sunshine
Project', a non-profit group based in Seattle
and Hamburg, has complained
that the US government was
planning the testing and widespread application
of microbial
fungus to attack plants producing coca, opium poppy and
cannabis (marijuana).
This microbial fungus use, the group notes, is
prohibited
in the United States itself, while the UN General Assembly in
1998 had specifically turned down proposals for the use of
pathogens
to kill narcotic crops.
The microbial pathogens, the Sunshine Project says,
pose
risks to human health and to biodiversity, and their use is
being
promoted abroad - in Asia and the Amazon regions - by
the United States as
part of its war against narcotics. The
pathogens have been tested only for
their effectiveness
against 'weeds', and not for safety for human health
and the
environment.
The NGO group says that the US has begun
conducting test
programmes on fungi (Pleospora sp. and others) to kill
opium
poppy and marijuana. In the Andes and western Amazon, the US
is
planning testing and widespread application of a fungus
that attacks coca
- Fusarium oxysporum, f. sp. Exythoroxilum.
These pathogens threaten human
health and biodiversity in
the Americas and Asia.
The US Congress, the
briefing document says, has recently
appropriated $23 million for
development of the pathogen
agents and, in the Americas, is linking the
fungal pathogen
plan to the US aid programmes.
These anti-crop fungus
programmes have been labelled as
'bio-control' research to eliminate
weeds, the NGO says.
'While plants producing narcotics are certainly
undesirable, they are not "weeds" by any logical policy or
regulatory
definition. And "bio-control" is a misnomer for
these pathogens.
Legitimate bio-controls protect cultivated
crops, but the US pathogens
kill them.'
And by appropriating the language of a legitimate branch
of
science, biological controls, the US programme has put the
reputation of a
growing and promising field of research at
risk.
The briefing document
points out that in 1989, an expert
group working on law enforcement and
drug control issues for
the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs first
suggested the use of
biological agents to kill narcotic crops. Though
nothing came
of this, the US unilaterally pursued scientific development
of
the idea, with limited bilateral cooperation particularly from
former Soviet research institutions in newly independent
Central Asian
states.
In 1997, at US prodding, the Vienna-based UN Drug Control
Programme (UNDCP) acted on the 1989 recommendation of experts
and
incorporated it into a global plan for eradication of
illicit crops, SCOPE
(Strategy for Coca and Opium Poppy
Elimination).
But the UN General
Assembly in 1998 rejected the SCOPE
move, and the idea of using narcotic
crop pathogens was
eliminated from the multilateral agenda. But the US,
and some
in the UNDCP, 'seem to have clung to the idea and are on the
verge of implementing it', says the Sunshine Project.
But since the US
unilateral push for the use of these
pathogens risks political exposure,
the US Government has been
pushing others to follow its lead. In a 1999
State Department
cable (obtained under the Freedom of Information Act),
the US
Secretary of State has exhorted the UNDCP 'to find more
support
for fungal eradication, and to solicit funds from
other governments, in
order to avoid the perception that this
is solely a US Government
initiative'.
But there has been little support from other countries,
the Sunshine Project notes. While the UK provided some small
supplemental funding for US-sponsored experiments with opium
poppy
fungus in Central Asia in the mid-1990s, no other donor
country has
responded to the US calls for support.
The NGO briefing paper notes that
with the exception of
manual and mechanical plant removal, crop
eradication
programmes using chemical herbicides have been controversial.
As early as 1988, the UN ECOSOC pointed out that drug
eradication
programmes should not use methods harming the
environment or
humans.
Some countries like Bolivia, Peru and Thailand have laws
or
implemented policies banning chemical eradication because
of the negative
impacts of herbicides on the environment,
human health and legitimate
crops. Civil society opposition to
such eradication has been
intense.
Applied in massive quantities from the air, such chemical
herbicides as glyphosate (RoundUp), tebuthiuron (Spike) and
hexaninone
harm humans and biodiversity.
But the US and the UNDCP maintain that
herbicides used in
specified ways are 'environmentally safe and non-toxic
for
humans'.
But the US finds even these herbicides not strong enough,
and is promoting fungal eradication to create plant sprays
more lethal
and long-lasting than glyphosate.
Recently, Peru passed a law banning the
use of biological
agents in coca eradication. The UNDCP admitted in
January this
year that Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan have refused to carry
out field-testing of opium poppy myoherbicide. And in a report
for the
Colombian Ombudsman for the Environment, leading
Colombian scientists have
said the use of such agents in
Colombia represents 'a great danger both
for humans as well as
the Colombian environment and biodiversity'.
The
Sunshine Project notes that the use of fungal
narcotic control has been
halted in Florida, the world's top
producer of cannabis. A private
company, Ag/Bio Con, which is
connected to the United States Department of
Agriculture,
proposed using a cannabis-killing strain of Fusarium
oxysporum
in Florida.
But the head of the Florida department of
environment
protection squashed the idea, saying this species was capable
of evolving rapidly, and its mutagenicity is by far the most
disturbing factor in its use as a bio-herbicide - it's
impossible to
control the spread of the Fusarium species.
The mutated fungi, it was
noted, could cause disease in a
large number of crops - tomatoes, peppers,
flowers, corn and
vines - and is normally considered a threat to farmers
as a
pest, and not as a pesticide. The Fusarium species is more
active
in warm soils and can stay resident in the soil for
years. This longevity
and enhanced activity in Florida weather
conditions could lead to an
increased risk of mutagenicity.
Despite this assessment, the Sunshine
Project charges
that the US is pressing the programme to the point when it
is
close to large releases. Field-tests are being conducted in
Central
Asia and there is enormous pressure on Colombia to
sign an agreement for
testing of the coca-killing fungus F.
oxysporum.
The potential target
acreage is in excess of one million
hectares, and the US envisions its
wide use in Asia and Latin
America.
The US claims that the pathogens
are environmentally
safe, are host-specific and don't present any danger
to
humans. But these claims are dubious, charges the Sunhine
Project.
Biodiversity concerns include the impact of altering
fungi
populations on highly fragile ecosystems, the impact on
non-target plant
species, on soil ecology and pollinators,
difficulties of control or
withdrawal once released, toxicity
problems, lack of clarity about the
fungi's 'natural
occurrence' and origin, and the possibility of future
introduction of living modified organism pathogens.
The US
pathogen-testing has been done primarily to assess
their effectiveness in
killing plants, not for their
environmental or human safety, nor have the
pathogens been
proved to be safe to other species. Testing for host
specificity has been very narrow, and has not included close
relatives
of target species.
Testing has also disregarded complex and fragile
ecosystems in much of South and South-East Asia and the Andes
and
Amazon basins. And in some US testing, the 'host-specific'
fungi have
attacked both related and non-related species.
The NGO paper also says that
the Agrias (Agrias Claudina)
butterfly, which depends on coca's wild
relatives in the
Amazonian rainforests, would be endangered.
The
Nairobi meeting of the COP, the NGO briefing paper
suggests, should
declare that the development of any pathogen
to deliberately kill any
cultivated crop is contrary to the
objectives of the CBD. It should also
assess potential impacts
of narcotic plant pathogens on
agriculture.
The COP should also convey to the UN Commission on
Narcotic Drugs prior to its March 2001 session the concerns of
the COP
over such international eradication programmes for
their effects on
biological diversity and rights of indigenous
peoples and local
communities. - Third World Network Features
-ends-
About the writer:
Chakravarthi Raghavan is Chief Editor of
SUNS (South-North Development
Monitor), a daily bulletin, and
Third World Network's representative in
Geneva.
When reproducing this feature, please credit Third World
Network Features and (if applicable) the cooperating magazine
or
agency involved in the article, and give the byline. Please
send us
cuttings.
Third World Network is also accessible on the World Wide Web.
Please visit our web site at http://www.twnside.org.sg
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