Indigenous Perspective: Biotechnology Versus the Rights of Mother - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Presented by: BJ McManama Indigenous Environmental Network Indigenous Perspective: Biotechnology Versus the Rights of Mother Earth Indigenous Environmental Network – Save Our Roots – Native Energy & Climate Campaign

Gratitude Respect  Thank you to the organizers of this NASEM Committee on Forest & Health and Biotechnology webinar for the invitation to present our position on this extremely timely and multi-layered issue Solidarity with facing the next Seven Generations. Indigenous Peoples Indigenous Environmental Network – Save Our Roots – Native Energy & Climate Campaign

Forests are interwoven with human evolution: Indigenous Peoples have lived in harmony within forest ecosystems and until the onset of peoples, plants, animals, and microorganisms from foreign lands, Forests we evolved with and adapted to 10’s of thousands of years of climatic changes. Every geographical area has unique complexities. To maintain the delicate are biodiversity of each ecosystem is completely dependent on the interactivity of countless elements, seen and unseen. more Modern science is still learning and understanding what Indigenous Peoples have known for countless generations. than Our planet has evolved, in balance, creating balance, for 4.6 billion years. Homo sapiens trees emerged around 200,000 years ago. About 10,000 years ago, Peasants developed the selection and breeding of seeds and domesticated agriculture began. Human creativity combined with nature to provide the abundance that allowed the evolution of societies and species. Humanity and Nature renewed each other, sustaining civilization and providing the potential for the Industrial Revolution. Biodiversity, GMOs, Gene Drives and the Militarized Mind by Vandana Shiva - https://www.commondreams.org/views/2016/07/10/biodiversity-gmos- gene-drives-and-militarized-mind Indigenous Environmental Network – Save Our Roots – Native Energy & Climate Campaign

Science has barely scratched the surface of knowledge needed to safely employ genetic engineering of any element of forest What is the current ecosystems. state of the science • Trees can live for decades regarding the • Trees are only one element in a forest potential for using ecosystem • Knowledge of how they contribute to the genetic unique biodiversity depends on a multitude engineering (GE) of factors to include geographic location • and similar Employing biotechnology to manage or eradicate disease and/or non- technologies in native/invasive species is dangerous at best trees to improve • Containment of a genetically engineered tree, plant, microorganism, or bug is forest health? likely to migrate outside of the target area • Many of the problems our forests are suffering from are solely due to human error/hubris and globalization Indigenous Environmental Network – Save Our Roots – Native Energy & Climate Campaign

Genetic engineering/biotech has not lived up to promises What is the current Genetic modification in the United States and state of the science Canada has not accelerated increases in crop yields regarding the and has led to an overall increase in the use of potential for using chemical applications: genetic • Nature still has the edge over scientists hoping to solve human problems with engineering (GE) GE organisms: • Bt corn has lost the effectiveness to stave off disease and now requires more and similar pesticides – this increases toxicity to soil, air, water technologies in • Herbicides have become largely ineffective and again require more trees to improve applications or stronger concentrations or combinations of chemicals • Yield studies show European crops produce more or similar yields without the forest health? Cont’d use of genetic modification Broken Promises of Genetically Modified Crops - https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/10/30/business/gmo-crops-pesticides.html Indigenous Environmental Network – Save Our Roots – Native Energy & Climate Campaign

Impacts may result in pests mutating and becoming resistant or creating completely new problems not anticipated due to related/unrelated interactions in a forest ecosystem. • Economics: For far too long forests around the world have been exploited which What are the is contributing to climate change and weakening natural resistance potential • Biotechnology is now being used to engineer trees expressly for commercial ecological and use. Not only are they being designed for current markets but new markets are being created to increase the need for more trees and other forest economic resources impacts of • Instead of looking at forests as a cash crop we need to be looking at other less land and resource intensive crops, and employ science to help in deploying trees reducing demand • protected from Biomass for energy production has destroyed millions of acres of forest and grasslands in the global south and contrary to industry hype is NOT carbon pests and neutral • Indigenous Peoples in South America and Southeast Asia are loosing pathogens using their ancestral homelands for tree plantations both GE and non-GE, biotechnology? therefore biotechnology will increase forest loss and not save vital rain forest ecosystems • The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization’s definition of a forest exacerbates the destruction of millions of acres of natural forests Indigenous Environmental Network – Save Our Roots – Native Energy & Climate Campaign

Economics & Forest Destruction The extreme extractive economy is out of control, of which forest resources are What are the part of…the answer to reducing the damage from pests and pathogens is to allow potential these ecosystems to repair/adapt with the guidance of Traditional Indigenous Ecological Knowledge ecological and economic Is this a radical idea? Yes, but it is gaining acceptance should be seriously implemented if we are to truly adapt to the rapidly changing climate. impacts of Are we able to predict what radical changes in precipitation are going to occur in deploying trees the next 10 / 20 / 30 years? protected from • Pathogens and pests are also subject to climatic changes. pests and • Making the wrong change and deploying a genetically modified tree into a pathogens using forest doesn’t guarantee a genetically modified organism won’t mutate and cause more damage or succumb to unexpected changes. biotechnology? • Genetically engineering and placing a tree species into an already stressed forest is likely to have grave/unintended consequences Cont’d • The time that it takes a tree to reach maturity may or may not solve the original problem and may do more damage to the ecosystem it was placed within Indigenous Environmental Network – Save Our Roots – Native Energy & Climate Campaign

The system currently in place is riddled with inadequacy and has been usurped by industry influence. • Despite a wealth of independent research and evidence government agencies tasked with protecting human and environmental safety have approved agrochemicals that negatively affect: • Water: Over just the last two decades a variety of agricultural chemicals are found at The Current concentrations that exceeded aquatic-life benchmarks in many rivers and streams that drain agricultural, urban, and mixed-land use watersheds. There is a growing Regulatory dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico due to agricultural runoff • Air quality: Scientists have found that particles containing a variety of highly toxic System chemicals released in the atmosphere in Asia can reach the forests and on the west coast of the United States in less than a week • Land: Agricultural chemicals have been shown to destroy microorganisms and healthy bacteria that are vital to the health of the plant and the humans that consume them. Glyphosate interferes with uptake of several important micronutrients, including manganese, zinc, iron and boron • Pollinators: The rapid decline in a variety of native and non-native/naturalized pollinators can be attributed to neonicotinoids - https://www.centerforfoodsafety.org/reports/4048/water-hazard-aquatic-contamination-by-neonicotinoid- insecticides-in-the-united-states Indigenous Environmental Network – Save Our Roots – Native Energy & Climate Campaign

Over the last few years genetically engineered trees have been approved with NO agency risk assessment or public evaluation and input-two examples: • Loblolly Pine – containing undisclosed novel genes • Arctic Apple – removed the enzyme that causes browning Even though testimony from FDA’s own scientists called into The Current question the safety of GMOs in general, three varieties of Regulatory potatoes were approved in 2017 System Growing Doubt: a Scientist’s Experience of GMOs, Jonathan R. Latham, PhD - https://www.independentsciencenews.org/health/growing-doubt-a-scientists-experience-of-gmos/ Cont’d Confidence in the processes and lack of respect for the people who will be most affected by these decisions without Free Prior and Informed consent is the highest form of disrespect and lack of concern for general well-being Industry incursion into the regulatory process, motivated by profit/greed, has completely scuttled respect and confidence in the system. Indigenous Environmental Network – Save Our Roots – Native Energy & Climate Campaign