Greenpeace accuses CSIRO of suppressing GE reports

Greenpeace Australia-Pacific has accused the CSIRO of suppressing several reports on environmental risks associated with genetically engineered crops, and alleged the Office of the Gene Technology Regulator was failing to acknowledge and assess “serious hazards” before granting GE crop licenses.

In a press release today, Greenpeace said the reports had “come to light” as the NSW Genetic Engineering Advisory Council (GEAC) meets for final discussions on an application by Monsanto Australia and Bayer Crop science to conduct a large-scale trial of genetically modified herbicide tolerant (GMHT canola) in NSW in the coming season.

The Gene Techology Regulator, Dr Sue Meek, has approved the environmental release of both the Monsanto and Bayer GE canolas during the past 12 months, judging them to pose no greater environmental or human health hazard than conventional canolas, including herbicide-tolerant canolas developed by non-GM mutation-breeding techniques.

Greenpeace and other anti-GM groups, including the NSW Conservation Council and the Network of Concerned Farmers – both of which have representatives on GEAC – have recently claimed the advisory council is not representative of broad community views on GM crops, and is industry-biased.

They have claimed that approval for trial is a foregone conclusion, despite the NSW Government’s three-year legislated moratorium on commercial production of GMHT canola and other new GM crops.

Greenpeace says one of the suppressed reports from the Ecological Risk Assessment for GMOs project, a three-year, $5.3 million study initiated by CSIRO’s Biodiversity Sector divisions in 2000, had identified 152 hazards of GE crops, of which nearly 70 per cent were not regularly assessed by the OGTR.

It also says the CSIRO reports challenge the conclusion of the GTR, Dr Sue Meek, that GMHT canolas are safe to the Australian environment.

Neither the CSIRO project leader, Dr Mark Lonsdale, nor Dr Meek, was available for comment today, but a spokesperson said the CSIRO report on potential environmental hazards that Greenpeace refers to is still in draft form.

The spokesman said Dr Meek had read the draft report, and discussed it with its author, Dr Keith Hayes. Neither had identified any environmental risks not already addressed by the OGTR risk-assessment procedure.

Asked on what basis it had concluded that CSIRO was suppressing the reports, which are freely available on the World Wide Web, Greenpeace GE campaign coordinator Jeremy Tager said a CSIRO contact had told him that the project had ceased, and there was “clear evidence” that the outputs and outcomes promised at its inception had not been delivered.

“At the time the project was launched, (CSIRO) promised it would be a public process, very thorough, and that they would put out information fliers, published material, hold parliamentary briefings and public consultations,” Tager said.

Tager said only one interim report had been published to date; Greenpeace had obtained copies of two other reports that he said were “highly critical” of the OGTR’s risk-assessment methodologies.

CSIRO responded to the Greenpeace claims today by acknowledging the existence of the reports, and pointing out that they had been prepared for the Department of Environment and Heritage, which it said was responsible for their public release – which it understood would be undertaken.

CSIRO’s Media Manager, Richard Forbes said, “The content is not controversial or new.

“The story here is about the imminent canola decision in NSW and a claim, by Greenpeace, that CSIRO has warned about ‘new risk’

“This claim is factually untrue. There is no ‘cover up’.

“The report is, in fact, not concerning itself with canola, but compares generic models for how to identify hazards. The report is not in any way related to the current consideration by the NSW Government.”