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Published May
2002 - Last Updated March 2005
LGVN environment - GM Crops
2005:
GM study shows potential 'harm' to environment
Final
tests of genetically modified crops grown in the UK have shown to
have significant damage to the environment
and wildlife. Scientists also say that the effects of GM damage
could linger in fields indefinitely. The tests have shown to dramatically
reduce the growth of wild flowers (called weeds) which are home
to insects and therefore food for birds.
From
2002: British government try to bury devastaing news about GM tests.
GM
crops are breeding with plants in the wild. Alarming results from
official trials of GM crops in Britain are severely jeopardising
Government plans for growing them commercially.
Over
the 2002 Christmas celebrations a story, which could prove significant
for the future of geneticaly modified crops was buried in the pages
of little viewed web site.
The
results, in a new British
Government report, show for the first time that GM crops are interbreeding
on a large scale with conventional crops. But it doesn't stop there.
It's also been found that GM crops are effecting wild flowers.
The
report is so devastating to the Government's case for GM crops that
ministers tried to bury the news by slipping in the information
on a Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra)
website on Christmas Eve. That's the one day in the year when no
newspapers are being prepared. Even then, the department published
only a heavily edited summary of the main report. Unusually, the
full report, which will contain much more devastating detail, was
withheld from publication on the website. Defra said it was available
on request. UK newspaper The
Independent on Sunday asked for the report, which is the result
of six years of monitoring of GM crops in Britain, but Defra said
no one was available to provide it.
The report is politically explosive because it gives the first results
from the official farm trials,
GM
Crops are now infiltrating wild crops in Mexico
Contrary to
governments reassurance that GM crops would not cross-pollinate
with the planets natural wild plant diversity, scientists have found
DNA from genetically modified crops in wild maize growing on remote
mountains in Mexico, 100 kilometres from the nearest industrially
farmed GM crops.
The authors
of the study, say they found the results hard to believe. However
they saw them verified by a Mexican Government follow up that some
of the wild samples were contaminated with telltale sections of
DNA from GM crops.
Predictably
arrogant in their response, pro GM associations say that although
the findings are "a good piece of research" … "it contained no real
surprises".
Monarch
Butterfly under serious threat from GM Crops
A new and additional
threat faces the monarch butterfly during their migration to North
America. Pollen from gene altered corn appears to be killing the
butterflies. Milkweed grows in abundance amongst and around the
corn. Pollen from the corn lands on the Milkweed, which is a favorite
food of the Monarch. One in five monarch larvae are known to be
dying after being exposed to the toxic corn pollen.
More
on the Monarch Butterfly
For more "Environment
News " articles please go to the LGVN
front page and
choose from there.
For discussion
on these issues see GGL's at VeggieGlobal.com
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