Have your say: GE dangers

A reader discusses the dangers of GMOs

The National Environmental Statement for Plantation Forestry ( NESPF) will remove all the precautionary and protective regulations of the local councils and the Resource Management Act. This document can be approved by a select committee and does not need to go before Parliament.

It will allow the planting of GE trees and the replanting of existing forests with GE trees.
This is dangerous when the current state of research into how the genome works is still at the early stages of research, and is still at the closed laboratory stage. Our government has a duty of care to protect our land, our waterways, our ecology our environment, our economies and our society from GE and GMOs.

The Environmental Court found in favour of local precautionary and protective regulations on GE and GMOs. The NESPF will be going against this ruling.

Some members of the public have shown they are not aware of the threat inherent in GE and GMOs.

These are experimental organisms. We do not know what they will do or what threats they may have.

Compare it to the mad cow disease caused by micro-organisms called prions. All GMOs have their beginnings as micro-organisms. They are a more serious threat than gorse or rabbits or even codlin moth because these pests can be seen, and we know most of what we need to know about them. We do not need to add more problems to agriculture in NZ.
The days of huge mono-culture forest plantations are in the past. We know they cause huge damage to the soil, water, waterways, infrastructure and environment: and have not paid for themselves.

New ways of creating forests in a sustainable fashion, environmentally friendly, ecologically healthy, and producing needed and valuable timber that can be carefully harvested are being carried out in forward-looking countries. Our government should be working on this, not giving into profit-seeking corporations that have no duty of care to our country, or ecology, or environment, or people.

M McDonald
(abridged)
Whangarei

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