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Urgent plea to strengthen the law against GMOs in Wales

Environmental groups are calling on the Welsh Assembly Government to strengthen the law to help prevent damage caused by growing genetically modified crops (GMOs) in Wales.

The groups, including Genewatch UK, GM Freeze, GM Free Cymru and Friends of the Earth Cymru, have written to Assembly Members throughout Wales urging them to support proposals to further strengthen environmental liability laws and help prevent GM pollution in Wales.

The groups are calling for GMOs to be made a special case when the EU Environmental Liability Directive is implemented in April this year. The new law is aimed at preventing and repairing environmental damage.

Under the EU law, governments may make companies wanting to release GM crops exempt from liability for any damage they cause if the crop had been given a European approval. The groups are calling on the Assembly Government to reject this approach in order to prevent future GM contamination and damage to the environment. Tighter regulations are needed to ensure that companies developing the GM crops are held liable if anything was to go wrong.

In a briefing to all Assembly Members, the groups set out their argument for making GMOs a special case within the new European law:

• The nature of the risks from GMOs is very different from other activities: GMOs are living and able to multiply in the environment.
• The range species and habitats covered excludes areas where GMOs are likely to be grown.
• Scientific knowledge about GMOs and their impacts is limited and unexpected results have occurred already.
• The permit system for GMOs is not location specific and they could be released anywhere across the countryside.
• The impact of GMOs may take longer than the 30 year liability time limit specified in the Directive.
• Liability does not extend to laboratory GM animals, plants and microbes which could escape and cause harm to the environment.

The NGOs are calling for the Regulations in Wales to:

• Drop the defence that allows exemption from liability if a company holds a consent to release a GMO (the “permit defence”). (1)
• Drop the defence that allows exemption from liability if the scientific opinion at the time of the release of the GMO was that it was safe for the environment (the “state of knowledge defence”).
• Make GMO consent holders not farmers strictly liable.
• Extend the liability time limit for GMOs to 75 years.
• Extend the scope of the areas covered by the Regulations to cover all countryside and all water bodies
• Make environmental liability insurance compulsory.

Commenting on the call for tighter regulations, Julian Rosser, Director of Friends of the Earth Cymru, said:

"The Government in England has said that English farmers and the environment do not need the full protection available under European law. If followed in Wales this would mean millions of acres of countryside and hundreds of species would not be covered for harm caused by GMOs. It is great that the Assembly Government has rejected that approach. We believe that there is even more it could do to keep Wales GM Free.”

Pete Riley, Director of GM Freeze, added:

"We welcome the Welsh Assembly’s proposal not to allow the permit defence. However, they should adopt a tougher line with GMOs throughout.  We believe the National Assembly would be applauded if they extend the scope of GMO liability by taking the steps we are proposing to control the impact of GMOs in Wales”.

Notes

1. The EU Liability Directive allows exemption from liability if the activity causing their environmental harm has been authorized by the authorities.  Thus a GMO Experimental or Commercial Release Consent for a particular GMO would mean that harm caused would not come under the Directive. This is known as the permit defence.  In the consultation for England Wales and Northern Ireland, The Welsh Assembly Government has indicated that they wish to drop the permit defence for GMOs.