Activists could tie GM up in knots

By PHILIPPA STEVENSON and KEVIN TAYLOR

Anti-GM activists could choke the genetic experiment application process and turn it into a nightmare.

Green Party co-leader Jeanette Fitzsimons has warned that GM protesters are ready to repeat an effort in which thousands of submissions to the Environmental Risk Management Authority (Erma) forced multinational company Monsanto to abandon an experiment application.

Erma chief executive Dr Bas Walker said the authority would be powerless to stop the onslaught.

The Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act process was open, allowing for as many people as requested to be heard at public hearings.

"So it is possible for the process to become very protracted and expensive, and there is not much we can do about that," he said yesterday.

Monsanto's application to field test GM wheat in Canterbury attracted 1400 submissions.

"It's not the submission process that could become too clogged," Dr Walker said, "but the public hearing could become a bit of a nightmare if a lot of people sought the right to make a presentation."

That would be an injustice to applicants who could find it too hard, long and expensive and "give up in disgust", he said.

But the act was weighted in favour of public participation and "the reality is that if people take advantage of that to clog the process up, there's not a hell of a lot we can do about it under the law."

Erma had not sought a law change and would prefer to wait and see whether the threat was carried out.

But the Life Sciences Network biotech umbrella group disagreed that Erma was powerless.

Chairman Dr William Rolleston said Erma had control over its processes.

"They will have to become very much sharper anyway."

There were major concerns at the Greens' threat to disrupt the Erma process, and by activists to destroy trial sites.

"This means the interests of the country are at greater risk from the actions of a fundamentalist fringe than from GM technology," he said.

Federated Farmers president Alistair Polson said the threat was appalling and the Greens risked using up their bank of public goodwill and marginalising themselves.

Full text of the Prime Minister's statement on GE

nzherald.co.nz/ge

Report of the Royal Commission on Genetic Modification

GE lessons from Britain

GE links

GE glossary