The EU Parliament yesterday called on the European Commission to restrict certain permitted uses of the toxic herbicide glyphosate, best known in Monsanto’s ‘Roundup’ formulation.

Glyphosate was last year determined to be “probably carcinogenic” by the WHO, and the resolution calls for no approval for many uses now considered acceptable, including use in or close to public parks, playgrounds and gardens and use where integrated pest management systems are sufficient for necessary weed control.

The resolution falls short of an outright ban called for by many and also calls for the renewal of the licence for glyphosate to be limited to just seven years instead of the 15 proposed by the Commission.

Nearly 700 MEPs voted on the seven-year licensing of glyphosate and the vote was passed by 374 votes in favor to 225 votes against.

The resolution also demands strict limits on ‘pre-harvest’ applications on crops, which refers to the practice of spraying crops up to two weeks before harvest to dessicate the plants and make harvesting easier. This use of glyphosate is believed to be a main source of residue exposure to humans, especially those found in bread.

Bad amendments have weakened the restrictions

Among other things, the resolution calls for the Commission and European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) to immediately disclose all scientific evidence for its recent positive classification of glyphosate and the Commission to test and monitor glyphosate residues in foods and drinks produced in the EU as well as in imported produce.

Moreover, it strongly criticised the Commission for accepting an incomplete dossier with regard to endocrine disruption and the toxic spiral by agro-biotech companies adding further resistances to plants.

This European Parliament vote to re-approve glyphosate for 7 years as opposed to the usual 15 years is non-binding on the Commission and EU member states. The EU member states will take the final vote in May.

Czech MEP Kateřina Konečná, GUE/NGL coordinator on the Parliament’s Committee on the Environment and Public Health, said:

“I am really disappointed by the outcome of today’s vote on our objection to the re-authorisation of the glyphosate herbicide. Our objection has been distorted. Some really bad amendments were tabled by right-wing groups in order to weaken a ban on glyphosate in the resolution and, unfortunately, they were approved.”

A very limited ‘victory’

What transpired on 13th April represents a very limited ‘victory’. To understand why this is the case, readers are urged to consult campaigner Rosemary Mason’s 18-page document, produced to accompany an open letter sent by Mason to British Medical Journal Editor-in-Chief Fiona Godlee.

It shows that poisoning the public and the environment with a cocktail of pesticides, not least glyphosate, on a massive scale is nothing short of criminal. Powerful commercial interests have colluded with governments, regulatory bodies and decision makers to ensure this has continued for decades.

For proof, see this list of reports on the Corporate Europe Observatory website that highlight how in Europe public institutions have been compromised over the regulation of chemicals, not least pesticides, due to serious and persistent conflicts of interest. Also see this CEE report on how the previous Commission served a corporate agenda.

Mason implies that the public are being hoodwinked by messages about health and that these messages serve agritech interests. In her letter to the BMJ, she notes a major conflict of interest was unaddressed.

CRUK – blaming the victims of industrial food, pollution

A piece, ‘People lack awareness of link between alcohol and cancer‘, was published in the BMJ by Anne Gulland reporting about a survey commissioned by Cancer Research UK (CRUK). Dr Penny Buykx, a senior research fellow at The University of Sheffield and lead author of the report, is quoted as saying:

“We’ve shown that public awareness of the increased cancer risk from drinking alcohol remains worryingly low. People link drinking and liver cancer, but most still don’t realise that cancers including breast cancer, mouth and throat cancers and bowel cancer are also linked with alcohol, and that risks for some cancers go up even by drinking a small amount.”

Mason argues that the way health-related research is reported serves the interests of pesticide manufacturers because something other than pesticides can be blamed for the epidemic of cancers. Messages about lifestyle behaviour and individual responsibility for health are constantly being reinforced by politicians, the media and research studies.

According to Mason, since November 2010 Michael Pragnell has been the Chairman of Cancer Research UK (CRUK). She notes Pragnell was the founder CEO of Syngenta AG based in Switzerland (from its public listing in 2000 to the end of 2007). He was also Chairman of CropLife International from 2002 to 2005.

Numerous studies and data sources are cited by Mason to highlight the deleterious health and environmental impacts of glyphosate. She implies that it is very convenient to lay the blame for poor health and disease elsewhere or at the door of things like alcohol consumption or individual behaviour.

Implying that poor health is the outcome of individual choice and lifestyle behaviour serves to divert the focus of attention away from commercial interests that profit from institutionalised health-damaging practices that affect the public.

The real causes of the pathologies of modern life – and death

This dovetails with ‘free-market’ ideology whereby free will and choice prevail and illness, unemployment, poverty, etc, are the fault of the victim, rather than the consequences of a system structured (politically and economically) to serve the needs of powerful commercial interests and which, as in the case of exposure to glyphosate, the public has no control over.

Instead of holding these interests to account, we are left with messages that say follow a low carb diet, it’s OK to drink sugary drinks because it a lack of exercise that causes obesity or drink a glass of red wine a day to keep the doctor away.

The Chief Medical Officer (England) and Cancer Research UK blame liver failure and liver cancers in the public on “lifestyle choices” i.e. the consumption of alcohol. However, as Mason argues, Séralini’s rats in France and dairy cows in Denmark also had liver pathologies. They cannot be blamed on ‘lifestyle choices’ but on glyphosate residues in food.

Mason states that since 2013 the Department of Health, Public Health England and the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs have been made aware that independent scientists have shown that glyphosate is linked to most of the diseases and conditions associated with those in a Western diet, including: gastrointestinal disorders, obesity, depression, autism, infertility, cancer and Alzheimer’s disease, celiac sprue and gluten intolerance.

Celiac disease is a multifactorial disease associated with numerous nutritional deficiencies as well as reproductive issues and increased risk to thyroid disease, kidney failure and cancer.

In addition, problems with low manganese levels (shown in cows fed GM soya and maize) are associated with gut dysbiosis as well as neuropathologies such as autism, Alzheimer’s disease, depression, anxiety syndrome, Parkinson’s disease, and prion diseases.

Mason argues that Monsanto knew that glyphosate caused cancer in animals but manipulated the data. US Scientist Anthony Samsel is the first independent researcher to examine Monsanto’s secret toxicology studies on glyphosate obtained under Freedom of Information from the US EPA. They reported a variety of cancers in animals.

If the EU Commission and the EFSA manage to renew the licence for glyphosate, the public’s health will continue to deteriorate, while the agritech industry and drug companies will continue to profit. 

Colin Todhunter is an extensively published independent writer and former social policy researcher, based in the UK and India.

Support Colin’s work here.

This article was originally published on Colin’s website.

I was one of several people who complained to the BBC about the misleading nature and pro-GMO bias of the Panorama programme, ‘GM Food: Cultivating Fear’.

In a truly extraordinary decision, the BBC has this week dismissed all the complaints about the programme.

Panorama had claimed that GM Bt brinjal (eggplant), engineered to express an insecticidal Bt toxin, had been a 90% success in Bangladesh.

In reality, the claimed “success” of Bt brinjal is entirely anecdotal and from sources with vested interests in the acceptance of GMO technology.

There are no peer-reviewed publications supporting the claims of success being made for Bt brinjal. Zero. Zilch. Nada. In contrast, there are detailed reports from sources in Bangladesh indicating that Bt brinjal was a widespread failure, as I pointed out to the BBC.

But GMO promoter Mark Lynas has not allowed these plain facts to sully his jubilant blog post titled ‘BBC dismisses anti-GMO activist complaints over Panorama film’s portrayal of Bangladesh Bt brinjal project’.

Lynas wrote: “The BBC’s highest complaints body, the Editorial Standards Committee (ESC) of the BBC Trust, found that all the complaints made about the programme were without merit.”

His clique of GMO industry supporters were quick to jump in and support him. They included the journalist Tamar Haspel, who has admitted receiving “plenty” of money from pro-agrichemical industry sources. Haspel tweeted: “Bt eggplant in Bangladesh is one of the most compelling GMO successes. @GMWatch is wrong, says @BBC.”

So was I wrong? Is Bt brinjal a compelling GMO success? Here’s a rundown of the facts.

‘Success’ of Bt brinjal is purely anecdotal

The source given in the BBC programme for the 90% success claim was Cornell University. Yet when I challenged Sarah Evanega of Cornell’s Alliance for Science to provide the evidence, she admitted that Cornell had none and said the source was the Bangladesh Agricultural Research Institute (BARI).

In turn, I asked BARI to provide evidence for the 90% success claim. They also provided none, only offering a powerpoint presentation of pictures of brinjals in the field.

The only ‘evidence’ of Bt brinjal’s success that BARI has published is a ‘rejoinder‘ to a United News of Bangladesh journalist’s report of the crop’s failure. The ‘rejoinder’ consists of undocumented assertions of Bt brinjal’s success by Dr Rafiqul Islam Mondal, director general of BARI.

What was the BBC Trust’s response to this absence of evidence for the programme’s claims? Its report says, “Cornell University is a highly credible source and it was not necessary to also state that the data had not yet been peer-reviewed or published in order to achieve due accuracy … the extent to which the audience would either expect, or need to hear about, other factors which might affect the viability of Bt brinjal was limited.”

This appears to mean that Cornell can say what it likes, the BBC is willing to repeat it as fact, and no scientific or other documented evidence is required. The hapless viewers, with their apparently “limited” expectations, are expected to take it on trust.

BBC Trust redefines ‘success’

The BBC Trust’s judgment hinges on a remarkable logical failure: In considering whether BBC Panorama was at fault in not clarifying what was meant by a 90% success, it states that the programme intended the statistic to refer only to the GM crop’s ability to resist the fruit and shoot borer caterpillar – “rather than to the success of the crop overall.”

The BBC is in effect saying that even if the crop as a whole failed due to bacterial wilt or other causes, that’s irrelevant to its ‘success’, as the trial was only to test its resistance to the fruit and shoot borer. In my view this is an extraordinary and indefensible interpretation of the word!

Then, in a significant admission, the Trust says it “considered that it would have been preferable had the programme explicitly stated this when it cited the statistic.” But then the Trust quickly decides the audience would not have been misled because “the aim of the farm trials was to test the ability of Bt brinjal to resist the fruit and shoot boring caterpillar and thus to reduce the use of harmful pesticides”.

The Trust adds that even if Panorama’s audience had taken the claim of 90% success to refer to the success of the crop overall, BARI had stated that failure for other reasons, such as bacterial wilt, amounted to no more than 10% of the crop.

Yet BARI has published no data documenting this claim, which is contradicted by a detailed report by the Bangladeshi research platform UBINIG. UBINIG collected data from 79 – 72% – of the farmers growing Bt brinjal in the second year of cultivation, the same year reported on by Panorama. UBINIG found:

“Out of 79 farmers in different districts, 58 (74%) declared that due to the losses they had incurred, they would not cultivate Bt brinjal again in the future. Sixteen (20%) of the farmers said they would do so only if the BARI or the Bangladesh Department of Agricultural Extension (DAE) provided all the support. Only one farmer showed an interest in growing Bt brinjal again.”

Did Bt brinjal require less pesticides?

The BBC Trust takes on faith claims that the Bt brinjal crop reduces the use of “harmful pesticides”. Lynas goes even further. He features on his blog a picture of a farmer growing Bt brinjal for the third year running – maybe the single farmer identified by UBINIG who was willing to try to the crop for the third year?

The photo is captioned, “Farmer Afzal Hossain, of Bangladesh’s Rangpur district, is on his third year of successfully cultivating pesticide-free Bt brinjal.” (my emphasis).

Even the Panorama programme admitted that Bt brinjal farmers used pesticides against pests other than the fruit and shoot borer. But Lynas has airbrushed them out of his caption, with its airy claim of “pesticide-free”.

Lynas goes on to dig an even deeper hole for himself, effectively accusing me of dishonesty: “It’s important also to note that in its complaint GMWatch did not seek to contradict the finding – repeated by Panorama – that applications of potentially toxic pesticides have been dramatically reduced by the cultivation of Bt brinjal.

“So let’s be clear – anti-GMO activists must know and accept that Bt brinjal reduces insecticides by 80-90% or more, yet they continue to oppose it for ideological reasons despite these clear health, environmental and farmer livelihood benefits demonstrated in Bangladesh. In this case anti-GMO really does equal pro-pesticide.”

But the evidence backing claims that Bt brinjal has reduced pesticide use at all, let alone by Lynas’s figure of 80-90%, is precisely zero.

In contrast, UBINIG reports that large amounts of pesticides were used on the crop: “The farmers had to use huge amounts of pesticides recommended by the supervising authorities of BARI and DAE. These included Comfidor, Ektara, Admasar, Dithen M-45, Bavistin, Thiovit, Basudin, Furadan, Borax, Demsa granular, Vim powder, Admire, 200sl (Bayer CropScience), bleach powder, Heckel, Salclox, Diazinon, etc.

“There were many other insecticides and fungicides sprayed, as provided by DAE. In the booklet of BARI, organic pesticides such as Neem seeds, Neem oil, powder soap, Trix, and the chemical pesticides Malathion, Omite, and Baviston were suggested for different pest/disease attacks.”

UBINIG adds that 35 different pesticides, including five banned pesticides, were “sprayed several times in the Bt brinjal fields” on the direction of the supervising officials. UBINIG says that the chemical arsenal was needed to combat a number of pests and diseases that the farmers said plagued Bt brinjal – not just bacterial wilt, which even BARI admitted to, but viruses, fungal infections, insect pests, and mites. The amounts of pesticides sprayed were not recorded by UBINIG.

Lynas is correct that I did not include any evidence about pesticides sprayed in my complaint to the BBC. But that was because UBINIG’s report hadn’t been published at the time I submitted the complaint. I did try to submit UBINIG’s pesticides evidence later in the complaints process, but the BBC told me it was too late to add new information. How convenient!

As for Lynas’s claims that there have been “clear health, environmental and farmer livelihood benefits demonstrated in Bangladesh”, again, the evidence for that is non-existent.

Toxicity of Bt brinjal

The BBC Trust dismissed the findings of the environmental epidemiologist and risk assessment expert Dr Lou Gallagher that Bt brinjal was toxic, based on Monsanto-Mahyco’s own data, which Dr Gallagher was able to examine and analyze.

The Trust’s reason? Dr Gallagher’s paper had not been “peer-reviewed or … published in a recognised scientific journal”.

Yet, as I made clear to the Trust during the complaints process, the Monsanto-Mahyco safety data that Dr Gallagher analyzed were also not peer-reviewed and published in a journal, and neither are most industry safety data on most commercialized GMOs, at least at the time of commercialization.

Neither were any of the claims made for Bt brinjal’s success in Bangladesh – repeated in the Panorama programme and during the complaints process – peer-reviewed and published in a journal.

In a clear example of unscientific double standards, the BBC Trust chose to disregard the lack of peer-reviewed and published status for all promotional claims in support of Bt brinjal, yet used the lack of such status as an excuse to dismiss a report that cast doubt on the GM crop’s safety.

Peer-reviewed paper in the works?

The BBC Trust notes that their Adviser during the complaints process “had been given access to a draft of the scientific paper which is being prepared by BARI for publication in a scientific journal on condition that its detailed content remained confidential.”

The Trust continues: “The Committee noted the guidance from the Adviser that whilst the draft paper did not include data analysing overall crop failure or concerning the performance of Bt brinjal in the marketplace, it did include detail about overall profit.

“The Committee was given to understand that the draft paper recorded significant cost advantage to farmers resulting from the reduction in the use of pesticides, and labour to apply them, which would usually account for 30 per cent of the overall cost of production.”

This is an intriguing detail. This unpublished and non-peer-reviewed paper, which apparently was sufficient to lay to rest any remaining doubts in the BBC Trust’s collective mind about the success of Bt brinjal, doesn’t look at overall crop failure or attractiveness in the marketplace – arguably the key points for any farmer considering growing it.

However it does allege reduction in pesticide use. So will the paper address the evidence uncovered by UBINIG about the long list of pesticides supplied to spray on the crop in “huge amounts” under the direction of the supervising officials?

And does the claim in the draft paper of “reduction in the use of pesticides, and labour to apply them” have anything to do with the situation as reported by UBINIG: “According to the farmers, most of the time, the [BARI and government] officials took care of the plants themselves as they had to show a good performance”?

This supervision, according to UBINIG, even included replacing dead plants with live ones – actions that would preclude acceptance of any data on Bt brinjal’s performance by any reputable scientific journal.

And if the farmers did enjoy reduced costs for pesticides, as claimed by the draft paper, was this because BARI and government officials provided the pesticides free of charge to the farmers, as well as fertilizers, which, according to UBINIG, were applied indiscriminately to the Bt brinjal fields?

Whom to believe?

The reader could be forgiven for concluding that when it comes to judging the success or otherwise of Bt brinjal in Bangladesh, it’s just the word of a United News of Bangladesh journalist and UBINIG against the BBC Panorama team and its chosen sources. How do we know whom to believe?

For myself, I have found the Bangladeshi reports more convincing than the accounts of the BBC and its allies, for the following reasons:

• They emanate from within Bangladesh, rather than British and US interests;

• Their reports are far more detailed, often naming individual farmers so that claims can be checked;

• In many cases, photographs and direct quotes have been supplied as supporting evidence;

• The reports’ authors would have nothing to gain and a great deal to lose from making false statements about the Bt brinjal venture, which enjoys support at the highest political level in Bangladesh and the US.

However, even the most skeptical observer would surely agree that the very existence of such contradictory reports begs for rigorous and independent scientific investigation, not the propaganda wash that is being served up by the BBC and Lynas.

Unfortunately it seems that no such investigation has been conducted and now it is too late, since the second year crops have long been removed from the fields.

BBC Trust: ‘both cheerleader and regulator’

In its investigation into the BBC Panorama programme on GM crops, the BBC Trust decided that BBC programme makers have done nothing wrong. There’s no surprise there, especially as an independent review of the governance and regulation of the BBC published earlier this year concluded, “The BBC Trust model is flawed”.

The report’s author, former deputy governor of the Bank of England Sir David Clementi, explained the fatal conflict of interest at the heart of the BBC Trust:

“The BBC Trust … brings together in the Trust Board both governance responsibilities for the BBC and regulatory responsibilities. They do not sit comfortably together. It is for this reason that the Trust is both cheerleader and regulator … Not surprisingly, best practice requires regulator and regulatee to be in different legal entities.” [my emphasis]

Even the BBC Trust chair Rona Fairhead agreed with this proposal: “Sir David Clementi proposes a strong BBC board and a strong external regulator – a change we have argued for.”

I couldn’t have put it better myself.

How reliable is Mark Lynas?

When it comes to matters GMO, Lynas has been repeatedly exposed as having a troubled relationship with the truth. His statements on GMO safety were termed “unscientific, illogical and absurd” by genetic engineer Dr Belinda Martineau. And his inflated claims about his former role in the anti-GMO movement have been denounced as “not true” by leaders of the environmental movement.

So why are we treated to his effusions on GMOs on a regular basis, as if he is some sort of expert? As Dr Doug Gurian-Sherman, senior scientist for the Center for Food Safety, commented, “It’s amazing to me how much credibility that guy has been able to develop just by carrying water for the industry.”

Courtesy of the world’s richest man, Bill Gates, Lynas now has a position at Cornell, as part of the controversial Cornell Alliance for Science. This allows Lynas to do paid promotion of GMOs “to the exclusion of almost everything else”.

So was I – and my Bangladeshi sources – wrong on Bt brinjal? And are the BBC and Mark Lynas trusted authorities on the topic? You decide.

Claire Robinson is an editor at GMWatch.

This article is co-published on GMWatch.

Also on The Ecologist:

• ‘GMO propaganda over facts? BBC Panorama and Bt brinjal‘ by Claire Robinson.
• ‘Bangladeshi farmers ditch GM brinjal‘ by Farida Akhter.

The proposed EU legislation on ‘Trade Secrets Protection’ creates excessive secrecy rights for businesses.

It is a direct threat to the work of journalists and their sources, whistle-blowers, employees’ freedom of expression and EU citizens’ rights to access public interest information – on medicines, pesticides, car emissions, etc.

We urge the members of the European Parliament to vote against the current draft on 14 April in Strasbourg and to ask the European Commission to come up with a text that protects trade secrets without endangering everyone else’s political rights.

As journalists, lawyers, researchers, consumers and citizens we are very concerned about the considerable legal uncertainties created by the proposed EU Directive on Trade Secrets Protection.

This text is meant to repress industrial espionage but abuses its purpose by applying to the whole of society legal remedies that should only apply to economic entities (competitors). Indeed, many member states today criminalise trade secrets theft within an unfair competition legal framework.

Draconian Transatlantic suppression of citizens’ rights

Aren’t trade secrets usually defined as “a secret formula, method, or device that gives one an advantage over competitors”?

Unfortunately, the definition chosen by the European Commission, in line with the TRIPS agreement and the US regime, derives from an intellectual property legal framework and is blind to context and intentions. In that sense, the ‘harmonisation’ sought by the European Commission derives much more from the US regime than what currently dominates among EU member states.

Indeed a comparable text is currently going through the US Congress, which would lead to a de facto legal harmonisation of trade secrets protection legislation on both sides of the Atlantic and facilitate the negotiations of the TTIP chapter on intellectual property.

According to the draft directive, a ‘trade secret’ is an information which is secret, and whose secrecy has commercial value and has been reasonably well protected. It means: “information which meets all of the following requirements:

(a) is secret in the sense that it is not, as a body or in the precise configuration and assembly of its components, generally known among or readily accessible to persons within the circles that normally deal with the kind of information in question;

(b) has commercial value because it is secret;

(c) has been subject to reasonable steps under the circumstances, by the person lawfully in control of the information, to keep it secret;”

This definition is so broad that it can include almost any internal information, pending the settling of case law.

By the corporations, for the corporations?

Therefore, the text would create a situation where secrecy is the legal norm for companies’ internal information and transparency the exception. It would offer private companies a right to sue anyone who would acquire, use or publish any information or document they consider a trade secret even if this person has no economic intention or motives.

This is not needed to fight industrial espionage, but is rather a big gift offered to all companies to prevent independent scrutiny of their products and behaviour.

The fact that this text was drafted at the request of and with considerable help of multinational companies, but in the complete absence of public debate and participation, might explain this situation.

The consequence would be that judges will have to balance crucial political rights and considerations, such as employees’ mobility, innovation, press freedoms and the right and need to access and publish certain proprietary information in the public interest (whistle-blowers but also scientists willing to test the safety of products on the market) with the economic interests of trade secret owners.

Since the European Commission published its initial proposal, additional protections and exceptions have been added by the European Parliament to try to better protect, notably, employees’ mobility, journalists and whistle-blowers. However, these exceptions are insufficient in the sense that they do not prevent the opening of lawsuits on grounds of trade secrets violation.

As intellectual property lawyers put it: “with the EU Trade Secrets Directive, we will need to wait for rulings from the [European Court of Justice] to see whether the exceptions will present serious problems for trade secret owners.” And this will take many years, during which the legal situation will remain unclear.

Not maximum, but minimum penalties

What will be the risks for the persons prosecuted? This Directive only sets minimum standards and member states are free to go further.

The scandalous criminal measures (jail term and €350,000 fine) foreseen by the French government in January 2015, when it tried to introduce key elements of this Directive into French law, could be re-introduced at member state level with this text, with opportunities for companies to use the most favorable national regime for legal action in the EU.

With companies protecting their reputation more and more aggressively, whistle-blowers are becoming the last sources of inside information on the brutality of corporate practices. As the recent Panama Papers demonstrated, such sources of information can be immensely useful to the public interest.

We urge the members of the European Parliament to not vote this regressive text, pending it is seriously improved.

Petition: ‘New secrecy rights for business? No Thanks!‘

More information: Trade Secrets Directive Factsheet by Corporate Europe Observatory.

This article was originally published on Euractiv.com.

Signatories

Anticor
ATTAC Spain
ATTAC France
Association Européenne pour la Défense des droits de l’Homme
Asociación Libre de Abogadas y Abogados
Centre national de coopération au développement, CNCD-11.11.11
Correctiv.org, Germany
BUKO Pharma-Kampagne
CCFD-Terre Solidaire
CFDT Journalistes
CGT Cadres, Ingénieurs, Techniciens (UGICT-CGT)
Collectif Europe et Médicament
Collectif de journalistes “Informer n’est pas un délit”
Comité de soutien à Antoine Deltour
Commons Network
Corporate Europe Observatory
Courage Foundation
Ecologistas en Acción
EcoNexus
European Network of Scientists for Social and Environmental Responsibility (ENSSER)
Fédération Syndicale Unitaire (FSU)
Fondation Sciences Citoyennes
Force Ouvrière-Cadres
Genewatch
German Trade Union Confederation (DGB)
GMWatch
Health and Trade Network
Inf’OGM
Institut Veblen
International Society of Drug Bulletins
La Quadrature du Net
Les économistes atterrés
Ligue des Droits de l’Homme
Observatoire Citoyen pour la Transparence Financière Internationale (OCTFI)
OGM Dangers
Peuples Solidaires
Nordic Cochrane Centre
Pesticides Action Network Europe (PAN-Europe)
Plateforme Paradis Fiscaux et Judiciaires
Public Concern At Work
Solidaires
SumOfUs
Syndicat des Avocats de France (SAF)
Syndicat National des Chercheurs Scientifiques (SNCS – FSU)
Syndicat National des Journalistes (SNJ)
Syndicat National des Journalistes CGT (SNJ-CGT)
Syndicat de la Magistrature
Tax Justice Network
Transparency International France
WeMove.eu
Whistleblower-Netzwerk e.V., Germany
Xnet

The European Parliament today adopted a resolution strongly opposing the Commission’s proposal to reapprove the controversial weedkiller glyphosate for use in Europe for 15 years.

The resolution flags significant concerns with the Commission’s proposal, notably calling for significantly restricting the uses for which glyphosate – best known in Monsanto’s ‘Roundup’ formulation – could be approved.

The Parliament’s vote precedes a decision by EU government representatives on whether or not to support the Commission proposal to approve glyphosate for use in the EU. This may take place at the next EU pesticides committee meeting on 18-19 May.

While the vote is non-binding on the Commission and EU governments, it will nonetheless carry strong moral weight since it comes from the EU’s only elected body directly representing EU citizens and will force a discussion of the issues raised.

The resolution calls for no approval of glyphosate – recently determined to be “probably carcinogenic” by the WHO’s cancer watchdog, the IARC – for many uses now considered acceptable, including:

• non-professional uses;
• in or close to public parks / playgrounds / gardens;
• where integrated pest management systems are sufficient for necessary weed control.

It also calls for the renewal to be limited to just seven years instead of the 15 proposed by the Commission.

Pre-havest ‘dessication’ strictly limited

The resolution additionally demands strict limits on ‘pre-harvest’ applications on crops, with a strong recital calling such uses “unacceptable”. This refers to the practice of spraying crops up to two weeks before harvest to ‘dessicate’ the plants and make havesting easier.

Pre-harvest application of glyphosate is a clear route for human exposure to glyphosate via the harvested crop. Currently glyphosate formulations are licenced for a wide range of crops including wheat, barley, oats, oilseed rape (canola), linseed, field beans and peas.

This use of glyphosate is believed to be the main source of the herbicide and its residues in bread and NGOs including the UK’s Soil Association are campaiging to stop this use.

The resolution further calls for:

• An independent review of overall toxicity of glyphosate;
• A call on the Commission and EFSA to immediately disclose all scientific evidence for the positive classification of glyphosate, given the overriding public interest in disclosure;
• A call on the Commission to test and monitor glyphosate residues in foods and drinks produced in the Union as well as in imported produce;
• Strong criticism of the Commission for accepting an incomplete dossier with regard to endocrine disruption;
• strong criticism of the problem of resistances of weed created by glyphosate, and the toxic spiral by agro-biotech companies adding further resistances to plants.

‘The Commission and EU governments must take note’

After the vote, Green food safety and public health spokesperson Bart Staes said: “The European Parliament has today highlighted serious concerns with the proposal to re-approve glyphosate for use in Europe and the Commission and EU governments must take note.

“We would have preferred if MEPs had followed the recommendation of the Parliament’s environment committee in clearly calling for an outright rejection of the re-approval of glyphosate. However, this resolution opposes approval of glyphosate for most of its uses, and takes aim at the excessive length of the approval proposed by the Commission.

“This is a shot across the bow of the Commission and it must now work with EU governments to address these concerns, rather than pushing ahead with its proposed reapproval.”

Although falling short of the full ban demanded by the Greens and campaigners, the passage of the resolution represents a huge victory for all those who have opposed the Commission’s proposal to re-licence for all existing uses for 15 years and heavily lobbied their MEPs. Over 1.4 million people have signed an Avaaz petition opposing the relicencing of glyphosate.

The passing of the resolution also represents some skilful political footwork by the Greens in the EU Parliament. While they wanted a complete ban on glyphosate, they worked with other political groups to impose restrictions that would secure a majority of votes from other parties – even though the Greens opposed the final resolution as falling short of a complete ban.

“There is growing opposition among EU governments to reapproving glyphosate for use in the EU and we hope today’s vote, combined with major public opposition, will convince more governments to change their minds on glyphosate”, Staes continued.

“Given the serious health and environmental concerns and conflicting scientific advice regarding glyphosate, it is scandalous that the EU Commission proposed to continue to allow its use for 15 more years, without any restrictions on its use.

“With the WHO assessment having concluded the substance is probably carcinogenic, EU governments must heed these concerns and reject the Commission’s proposal.” 

Principal source: Greens / EFA group.

Major European energy companies are set to build and run the controversial mega-dam project planned for the Tapajos river in the heart of the Amazon.

This comes as a senior construction official has implicated the nearby Belo Monte dam in the massive corruption scandal that has engulfed President Dilma Rousseff and the country’s most powerful political figures.

Otávio Marques de Azevedo, former president of the Brazilian construction company Andrade Gutierrez, told investigators that the Belo Monte dam was used to generate donations of 150m reais ($41.4m) to the ruling coalition. Dozens of other projects were also corruptly used to generate funds for political parties, he testified in a plea bargain.

The Brazilian government is aggressively promoting the development of an enormous hydropower complex on the Amazonian waterway despite fears that it would cause mass deforestation and flooding that would devastate indigenous communities and the wildlife.

French utilities EDF and Engie are members of a study group of companies who may bid to win contracts for the largest dam in the initiative – the São Luiz do Tapajós project. The study group also involves Brazilian firms linked to the ongoing corruption investigation.

Italian energy company Enel quit the group earlier this year, claiming the dam jarred with a fresh set of priorities introduced by new, environmentally friendly management.

A joint venture between German firms Siemens and Voith, though not part of the construction consortia, is thought likely to manufacture the turbines used at the dam and to be an otherwise key player in the supply chain.

Meanwhile China Three Gorges, the controversial company behind the enormous dam that bears its name, is also fishing for contracts, but – seeing as it’s not part of the favoured group – it may not actually get the job.

Most of the rest of the firms likely to be involved in the Tapajos hydro scheme are Brazilian, led by state-owned Electrobras.

Why Tapajos matters

At 800km, the Tapajos is the fifth largest tributary of the Amazon River, supporting over 14,500 indigenous peoples as well as an inestimable amount of flora and fauna.

By far the largest of the several dams planned for the river, the São Luiz do Tapajós dam (SLT) is set to stand 53 metres high and 7.6km wide, and will have an installed capacity of 8,000MW.

To get a sense of the environmental impacts of a dam this size, simply cast your eyes east to Belo Monte, where the world’s third largest hydro project is currently under construction. The project has led to reports of huge amounts of forest burned and felled, and an increased trade in illegal timber, on top of the deforestation caused by the dam itself.

The Tapajos initiative could risk the diverse animal and plant life in region, whilst indigenous peoples, most prominently the Munduruku, will see some of their sacred lands flooded.

Following the Belo Monte corruption revelations Danicley Aguiar, Amazon campaigner for Greenpeace Brazil, said the report highlighted the need to halt the planned cascade of dams on the Tapajós river:

“Andrade Gutierrez has exposed one of the worst-kept secrets in Brazil, that our infrastructure projects are riddled with corruption, including the major dams in Amazonia. The first question which needs answering is why the Brazilian government insists on building mega-dams instead of investing in more efficient and less destructive options like solar and wind power, which are capable of answering the Brazilian demand for energy.”

Here come the Europeans

Companies and groups are right now readying bids for contracts to be issued via an auction run by Brazil’s power regulator. So far two major prospective bidders have emerged – both with ties to the Brazilian state-owned electricity company Electrobras.

The first is an eight-company consortia called Grupo de Estudos, which includes Engie and Électricité de France (EDF), two of the largest energy companies in Europe. The consortium, led by Eletrobras, also includes Eletronorte (a subsidiary of Eletrobras), Camargo Corrêa, Cemig, Copel, and Neoenergia.

Though it has yet to formally announce its intention to bid for contract, the group has already submitted an Environmental Impact Assessment – plus it’s name is a dead giveaway.

It is perhaps surprising that, in spite of the stink of corruption around Brazil’s energy sector and the risks the dam poses to native peoples and the environment, European energy companies are still looking to get involved. It didn’t gel for Italian company Enel, who quit the consortia this year in the latest sign of its crisis of conscience.

Engie have been operating in Brazil for years already, with subsidiary Tractebel Energia the country’s largest independent energy producer (it runs 6% of Brazil’s installed generation capacity).

EDF, who in Hinkley Point nuclear plant is already embroiled in international controversy over a massive energy infrastructure project, has explicitly said it will not “tolerate any violation of human rights”, is committed to “transparency and dialogue” and considers protecting biodiversity as a “group priority”.

In a statement given to Energydesk, EDF said it has yet to take an investment decision on the Tapajos dam, and “is still checking that social and environmental requirements, a major concern for the Group, are carefully met”.

This isn’t to suggest the only western giants associated with the Tapajos initiative are part of this study group, far from it. There’s also Voith Hydro, a joint venture between German firms Voith and Siemens.

This collaboration, which supplies turbines and generators, has been working on the troubled Belo Monte dam nearby, providing four turbines, four generators, electrical and mechanical auxiliaries, the automation system and the complete engineering services for the project.

US enterprise General Electric, via its recently acquired Alstom subsidiary, hasn’t ruled out getting in on the Tapajos business either.

We have reached out to these firms for comment and will update the piece if and when it is provided.

China wants to get involved

Okay, so that’s what’s behind door number 1. Door number 2, which is rather less likely to be opened, finds the Chinese state and another Electrobras subsidiary with a joint bid. In 2014 the Brazilian company Furnas partnered with China Three Gorges (CTG) to carry out a feasibility study on the SLT megadam.

Chinese leader Xi Jinping and Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff were at the signing ceremony, which marked – along with the Hinkley nuclear project – a new strategy from Beijing: export its capital expenditure energy infrastructure.

CTG, infamous for the mass displacement caused by the dam it built on the Yangtze River in China, is now looking west to branch out its business, with a special eye on the Brazilian market.

It recently acquired a 30-year concession to operate two hydropower plants in Brazil, the Jupiá and Ilha Solteira dams.

Brazil’s corruption scandal

At the centre of both prospective bids is Electrobras, the second largest energy company in Brazil. Yes, Electrobras is state-owned and therefore tied to in some degree the corruption crisis that threatens to take down the Rousseff administration.

The company is facing two class action lawsuits in the US, one of which alleges that senior executives and subsidiaries profited from bribery and money associated with major projects, including the Belo Monte, Jiaru, Santo Antonio and Teles Pires dams.

This lawsuit, led by the municipal corporation of Providence, Rhode Island on behalf of anyone who acquired shares in Electrobras between 2010 and 2015, was born out of the wider corruption scandal which originated with Petrobras, the country’s other major state-owned energy company.

Recently the Belo Monte dam has become a focus on the investigation, with just last month Senator Delcídio do Amaral admitting $9 million had been siphoned off from the project to fund election campaigns.

He added that the corruption around Belo Monte extended to exerting political pressure to ensure contracts were awarded to companies such as IMPSA, Siemens and Alstom.

Zachary Davies Boren is an environment journalist writing for Greenpeace Energydesk, the Press Association, The Telegraph, The Independent, Huffington Post, IBTimes, Yahoo, Chicago Tribune and other media.

This article was originally published on Greenpeace Energydesk.

I had a call from Rosalie Kunoth-Monks the other day.

Rosalie is an elder of the Arrernte-Alyawarra people, who lives in Utopia, a vast and remote region in the ‘red heart’ of Australia.

The nearest town is Alice Springs, more than 200 miles across an ancient landscape of spinifex and swirling skeins of red dust.

The first Europeans who came here, perhaps demented by the heat, imagined a white utopia that was not theirs to imagine; for this is a sacred place, the homeland of the oldest, most continuous human presence on earth.

Rosalie was distressed, defiant and eloquent. Her distinction as one unafraid to speak up in a society so often deaf to the cries and anguish of its first people, its singular uniqueness, is well earned.

She appears in my 2013 film, Utopia, with a searing description of a discarded people: “We are not wanted in our own country.” She has described the legacies of a genocide: a word political Australia loathes and fears.

A week ago, Rosalie and her daughter Ngarla put out an alert that people were starving in Utopia. They said that elderly Indigenous people in the homelands had received no food from an aged care program funded by the Australian Government and administered by the regional Council.

“One elderly man with end-stage Parkinson’s received two small packets of mincemeat and white bread”, said Ngarla, “the elderly woman living nearby received nothing.” In calling for food drops, Rosalie said, “The whole community including children and the elderly go without food, often on a daily basis.”

She and Ngarla and their community have cooked and distributed food as best they can.