INITIATIVE ON ESTABLISHING THE ALPS-ADRIATIC REGION AS GMO-FREE ZONE

2014-10-21: Please find enclosed to this e-mail an information of the Initiative on establishing the Alps-Adriatic region as GMO-free zone, launched today in European parliament by Ms. Marijana Petir, MEP (EPP, Croatia).In the attachment you can find also Joint statement for MEP-s to support the initiative and our update of your table of GMO-free regions. 

Kind regards,
Domagoj Stjepan Krnjak
Parliamentary Assistant to Marijana PETIR, MEP

INITIATIVE ON ESTABLISHING THE ALPS-ADRIATIC REGION AS GMO-FREE ZONE

The natural wealth of the Alps-Adria region, in all its diversity and uniqueness, is recognized as the invaluable treasure, and its preservation as the highest value worthy of our permanent efforts and commitment.

The Alps-Adriatic region, together with its conditioning of food production in the traditional way arising from the daily labour of family farms and their efforts to preserve the autochthonous villages and their customs, brings forth the need to recognize various possibilities of its rational exploitation, as well as the need of its special protection to the benefit of the local community and the inhabitants.

Recognizing the protected natural areas as a possibility to develop compatible economic and tourism activities in their local settings, we emphasize the importance of a harmonious and sustainable coexistence with nature throughout the Alps-Adriatic region, and with the present statement we support the traditional and organic agricultural production and the preservation of the biodiversity, this being a guarantee of the safe future of our generation and of those to come.

In order to further stimulate agricultural production, promote tourism, and preserve the biodiversity of the entire Alps-Adriatic region, with this statement we support the decisions of all local, regional and national authorities which have declared their territories to be GMO-free.

The promotion of the Alps-Adriatic region as the area of home-grown, high-quality and organically grown food, completely free from genetically modified organisms, should continue by further development of rural areas in harmony with nature

We deem it necessary to point out the importance of encouraging different forms of the financing of projects targeting at the preservation of traditional and organic production in harmony with nature, in order to prevent the protected values from being an “impediment” to the development, but to make them coexist with the environment and the people and complement each other instead.

We also invite other international partners (especially those from the Central Europe), to join this initiative and invest the necessary effort so that the support for the GMO-free areas could be accepted and supported in the neighbouring countries with the aim of preserving the biodiversity, the traditional and organic agricultural production inherent to the heritage of the Central Europe.

EXPLANATION

The final aim of the present initiative is to establish the entire Alps-Adriatic region as a GMO-free area.

With this joint statement we are giving support to the local and regional administration and national authorities in the Alps-Adriatic region which have declared their areas GMO-free and we invite those who have not done this yet to do so as soon as possible. Our wish is to prohibit the release of the live GMOs into the environment, even for the experimental purposes, in the countries of the Alps-Adriatic region, i.e. Croatia, Slovenia, Hungary, Austria and Italy, and their administrative parts belonging to the Alps-Adriatic region. We invite other representatives of the Member States in the neighbouring areas of the region to join this statement.

All Croatian counties adopted appropriate decisions prohibiting the release of live GMOs into the environment, even to the experimental purposes. Pursuant to the counties' competencies in the Republic of Croatia and to the above decisions, it is not possible to grow or release GMOs into the environment in their area, without prior change of the above decisions. With these decisions, the Republic of Croatia has become a GMO-free country. The same has been achieved in over 150 regions and 4500 local governments throughout Europe (the list is in the attachment)1. The aim of the present initiative is to encourage all the decision makers to make their personal commitment in reaching similar decisions at the local and regional levels of all Member States of the Alps-Adriatic region, aimed at sending a strong message not only to the national governments but also to the European Union, that the citizens of this region do not want to be exposed to the risk of the GMOs release into their environment, that they care for their environment and the biodiversity in the area where they live and for the local and traditional food production.

Likewise, in the light of the changes of the European legislation governing the rights of the Member States to decide independently on the introduction of live GMOs into the environment, we want to emphasize that this right should by no means be breached.






Europski parlament

marijana.petir@europarl.europa.eu

European Parliament

ASP 14E 115, Rue Wiertz 60,

B-1047 Brussels

Tel:+32 (0)2 28 45429 Fax: +32 (0)2 28 49429

Parlement Européen

Bât. Louise Weiss T09039

1, avenue du Président Robert Schuman,

F-67070 Strasbourg

Tel:+32 (0)3 88175429 Fax: +32 (0)388179429

1 European Confrence on GMO-free Regions, biodiversity & rural development http://www.gmo-free-regions.org/ GMWATCH http://www.gmwatch.org/