Seychelles is committed to having in place strong safe guards on all aspects of LMO (Living Modified Organisms) safety before allowing such organisms to be imported.

As part of such effort, a presentation was held recently with the aim of educating both Members of the National Assembly and members of the National Coordinating Committee charged with drawing up a Biosafety Framework to legislate the use of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) on the aims of the Cartegena Protocol which address the issues surrounding LMOs.

As the Cartegena Protocol – to which Seychelles is a signatory – will attempt to govern the use, handling and movement of LMOs, it was deemed essential that members of the Committee have a working knowledge of the Protocol.

Introducing the presentation – conducted by local environment consultant John Nevill – the Ministry of Environment's director for Conservation Selby Remie said that his ministry was pushing for the Cartegena Protocol to be ratified by the government ahead of the first meeting of signatories, to be held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, in February next year.

Mr Nevill explained that the proposed benefits of LMOs include increased crop yields, and a reduction in the use of pesticides, herbicides and fertiliser.

On the negative side, however, there remain concerns over the impact of LMOs on health, antibiotic resistance, patents, high costs, terminator genes, contamination of ecosystems, pesticide resistance, ethical and religious sensibilities and so forth.

Ratifying the Protocol would allow Seychelles to put in place strong safe guards on all aspects of LMO safety before allowing such organisms to be imported. However, as there are presently no guidelines on the import of LMOs it is possible that such organisms are already present in Seychelles, though Mr Nevill said he believed that this was unlikely.

According to Mr Nevill one avenue which may delay effective legislation though is the demand for all LMO containing products to be clearly labelled as such.

Mr Nevill said that the Cartegena Protocol was very heavily based on a precautionary principle and that it allowed for participating states to block imports of LMOs on the grounds that allowing them would have unknown consequences.

Mr Nevill also noted that a significant period of time would be required for many of these unknown factors to be determined. Taking the example of current invasive plant species, he said that there was almost no way of putting a time frame on answering questions on the effects of releasing LMOs into the environment and that the effects on human health would, as with other issues related to the long term health effects of other factors, take a number of generations to accurately determine.

The formation of the National Coordinating Committee and research into the effects of LMOs and GMOs has been financed by a US$150,000 grant from the Global Environmental Facility (GEF), via the United Nations Environment Programme.

The conditions of the GEF grant state that a first draft of the Biosafety Framework must be completed by November next year.

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