sovereignty

Western Australian based Robyn from fragments treasures memory weblog sent a video fro me to watch this morning that had references to grave consequences for seeds called "What in the world are they spraying?" discussing Chem trails (chemical trails). I then visited civileats.com a website/blog to see if there was anything coming up there on this geo-engineering. 

Civil Eats "promotes critical thought about sustainable agriculture and food systems as part of building economically and socially just communities. In our efforts, we support the development of a dialog among local and national leaders about the American food system, and its effects abroad. Civil Eats  style of conversation is as diverse as its 40+ contributors."

What I did find were recent stories on Food Sovereignty ( the video connected to this very much) which is what I have posted on today. Thank you Robyn for sharing something important to find out more about... and for prompting me to consider 

sovereignty |ˈsäv(ə)rəntē|noun ( pl. -ties)supreme power or authority : how can we hope to wrest sovereignty away from the oligarchy and back to the people?• the authority of a state to govern itself or another state : national sovereignty.See note at jurisdiction .• a self-governing state.ORIGIN late Middle English : from Old French sovereinete, from soverain (see sovereign ). 

 

The more I read about the world's traded seeds the less control ordinary people may have now over the right to access the seed heritage of the land they live in .... this is indeed a serious issue in some parts of the world and is worth being vigilant about. There are places it has become illegal to save seeds. If you have not been aware of this shift in circumstance over the last decade or so then it might well seem impossible to believe.

With thoughts of     s o v e r e i g n i t y   in mind consider these stories below if you have time to read them... 

2009, Paraguay

from the Women Seed Forum in South Korea

Content: This booklet is the compilation of the pepers and experiences of the women peasants from peasant organizations members of La Via Campesina in the region. The booklet explained about the role of the women peasant in conserve the seed and in another hand we are loosing the native seed we have. This booklet also given example how women peasant save the seed and exchange the seed among the peasant.

Rome, 14th October, 2010
U.N. COMMITTEE ON WORLD FOOD SECURITY

Farmers' evaluation of the UN Committee on World Food Security

Farmers from the international peasant movement La Via Campesina participating in the the plenary session of the Committee on World Food Security (CFS) of the UN in Rome (October 11-16) will present their evaluation of the discussion during a press conference tomorrow. - 15th of October – 10h30: Press Conference by La Via Campesina FAO, Via delle Terme di Caracalla)

READ MORE...

 

La Via Campesina Call to Action – Help Stop Terminator’s Return!

WEDNESDAY, 28 JULY 2010 17:01

(July 2010) Four years after the moratorium on Terminator technology was reaffirmed by the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), proposals to develop and commercialize ‘genetic-use restriction technologies’ (GURTs) are back on the agenda for policymakers and the biotechnology industry. Terminator is a threat to food sovereignty and agrobiodiversity: ending the moratorium on Terminator will increase control of seed by transnational corporations (TNCs) and restrictions on farmers’ rights to save and plant harvested seed. Additionally, pollen from genetically-modified (GM) crops with Terminator will contaminate non-GM and organic crops, and native plant species. GURTs (herein referred to as ‘Terminator’) are genetic engineering technologies that seek to control plant fertility. First-generation Terminator (also called ‘suicide seed’) was developedjointly by the US Department of Agriculture and Delta and Pine Land Company in the 1990s to protect the intellectual property of US agricultural biotechnology TNCs. GM crops produce sterile seeds to prevent farmers from replanting harvested seed with patented DNA. Due to international public outcry from farmers and civil society worldwide, Terminator has never been commercialized anywhere, and Brazil and India have national moratoriums prohibiting it. In 2000, the CBD recommended a de facto moratorium on field-testing and commercial sale of Terminator seeds. In 2006, pressure from La Via Campesina and its allies helped to strengthen this moratorium in Curitiba, Brazil. That year, US-based TNC Monsanto Company, the largest seed company in the world, acquired Delta and Pine Land, along with the intellectual property rights to Terminator. Since then industry, the US and European governments and ultra-rich philanthro-capitalists have ramped up rhetoric on the need for Terminator and other biotechnologies to adapt to the climate, energy and food crises. Various false solutions are being proposed to sell the lie that techno-fixes allow rich countries to continue consuming resources and emitting carbon dioxide, unabated: GM crops for cellulosic and second-generation agrofuels; geoengineering ‘climate ready’ GM crops and trees with increased albedo (reflectivity) and resistance to drought, heat and salt; monoculture plantation forests of GM trees to industrially produce biochar for carbon sequestration; and GM algae and marine microbes for carbon dioxide sequestration. Monsanto is proposing that monoculture plantations of its Roundup Ready soybeans qualify for carbon credits under so-called “no-till” agriculture. All of these false solutions create new markets for agricultural biotechnology and ‘extreme genetic engineering’. With financing by the US government and British Petroleum (BP), in May, Synthetic Genomics, the company founded J. Craig Venter (which helped to sequence the human genome)announced that it had created the first-ever synthetic, self-reproducing microbe with synthetic biology. Venter’s team claims that the microbe can be used to produce clean, green algal biofuels; however, what will happen if this microbe escapes into the wild and contaminates non-synthetic algae with its DNA? Similarly, what will happen when a GM maize variety engineered to have a high amount of stover (the stalks, husks, etc. of maize) for cellulosic agrofuels contaminates food maize varieties? The implications are frightening. Industry is now claiming that Terminator is needed to contain genetic contamination (transgene flow) of food crops and other natural life forms from genetically-engineered DNA in non-food crops; in essence, as a precautionary, environmental necessity. Venter recently told the New York Times that Terminator should be employed to contain transgenic contamination. Genetic contamination of non-GM and organic food crops from GM crops, which occurs through the spread of GM pollen by wind and bees, is gaining recognition as a growing ecological and economic problem. On June 21st the US Supreme Court ruled on Monsanto Co vs. Geertson Seed Farms, and recognized that transgenic contamination is “harmful and onerous to organic and conventional farmers,” and grounds for litigation against biotechnology TNCs. Thus a new generation of Terminator research is focused on biological containment to prevent engineered genetic traits (transgenes) from spreading to non-GM food plants and wild relatives. It is highly unlikely that the industry that created the problem of genetic pollution will solve it with more biotechnology. Given BP’s difficulty to contain the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, why would the US government entrust it to contain trangene flow from the world’s first synthetic life form? Yet that is what is taking place. Europe has funded the Transcontainer Project with billions of euros, and there are proposals from right-wing Brazilian politicians to overturn the country’s national ban on Terminator. While application and commercialization of Terminator technologies can’t promise fail-safe containment of transgenes, they can function to control farmers’ access to seeds and germplasm. Under the guise of environmental security for GM crops, industry will use the new generation of Terminator technologies to tighten its grasp on proprietary germplasm, and restrict the rights of farmers to re-plant harvested seeds. Further, the likely prospect of contamination of food crops by GM crops engineered with Terminator places the entire global food supply at imminent risk, and it therefore poses unacceptable threats to food and seed sovereignty and agro-biodiversity. TNCs are expanding and consolidating control over the world’s croplands, rangelands, peat bogs and last remaining forests, while simultaneously consolidating control of the genetic commons at cellular and molecular levels. Terminator technologies for synthetic biology, GM crops for agrofuels, geoengineering and all of the other false solutions to the energy, climate and food crises enclose vast genetic resources and agrobiodiversity, taking them out of the public realm and into the control of TNCs, especially the US Big Biotech giants Monsanto, Dupont and Arborgen.

READ FULL ARTICLE from above HERE!

GMOs: The socio – economic impacts of contamination

THURSDAY, 25 MARCH 2010 16:53

European coordination via campesina Public resistance - The long struggle against GMOS in Europe In spite of the repeated rejections of European farmers and consumers who have consistently iterated their opposition to the introduction of GMOs in European fields and markets, the EU is still pushing them against European Food Soveriegnty, and GMO crops and foods are in our fields and shops. The struggle against GMOs continues. It is clear that the push for GM technology in Europe is caused by the commitments made by the EU Commission to    biotechnology industries and their political representatives in order to introduce GM crops in Europe. GM seeds represent the last step in reducing the role of farmers from independent food producers to simple labourers, ignoring the these impacts...should send warning “The “domino effect” nature of many of of    bells ringing in European Institutions” value traditional knowledge, the role of farmers in biodiversity and environmental protection and locking farmers into a system based on seed, fertiliser, agrochemical and energy inputs entirely dependent on and controlled by transnational corporations and a logic of profit. The farmers of the European Coordination Via Campesina reject GM agriculture on all grounds, and most urgently for the threat it poses to the very model of agricultural and food production which is now urgently needed in order to protect the environment, biodiversity, European food sovereignty and rural livelihoods.

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Small Farmers’ Solutions to the biodiversity crisis

TUESDAY, 26 OCTOBER 2010 15:45

Press Release- La Via Campesina (Nagoya, 26 October 2010) Small farmer delegates from different parts of the world who are members of the international peasant movement La Via Campesina are attending the Convention of Biodiversity conference in Nagoya, Japan. They represent hundreds of millions of small farmers and family farmers in the world. Colleen Ross from the National Farmers Union of Canada following the process said “We are disappointed in many of the initiatives discussed in the working groups of the conference, such as “sustainable biofuels”. What we call “agrofuels” are actually not sustainable and do not constitute a renewable source of energy. It is really no solution to climate change, or of any benefit to farmers, indigenous people or local communities, but just a way for agribusiness to make more money”. Many small farmers in the Global South are facing exclusion and bankruptcy due to the expansion of agrofuel plantations. They loose their biodiversity due to monoculture plantations and they lose their land and territories. Hunger and poverty is everywhere in the rural areas. Worse, agroethanol and agrodiesel do not even solve the climate crisis, they actually increase it. History has shown that it is small farmers and indigenous people that have defended their territories and protected biodiversity through ecological farming. Therefore the Convention of Parties (COP) of the CBD should not just recognize the importance of sustainable family farming agriculture but actively support it. Such a support would be a major achievement of the CBD for the protection of biodiversity. In this COP10 - CBD La Via Campesina farmers demand : An end to the expansion of agroefuel plantations, and the reduction of consumption of agrofuel. There is no “sustainable biofuel”. Mandatory information on the origin of biological resources used for each commercialization of all products. A moratorium on Genetically Used Restriction Technologies such as “terminator” and transgenic seeds. No patents or breeding rights on living organisms, their parts and derivatives and the cancellation of all existing property rights on these. Access and use of biological resources and knowledge should be conditioned on the prior consent of indigenous and local communities. No market mechanisms on biodiversity and climate change solutions.

Take a look at these extraordinary images!

Its so wonderful to be sent material that's ideal the 'homage to the seed' blog. These came from a lovely friend Terri who thought I'd like to see these images from an International Photomicrography competition. Found at Boston.com its well worth a look at the entire collection of photographs!

Thank you Terri!

NB....the images I chose are mostly botany-related ... with several exceptions. Two are from the ocean and one I posted out of pure whimsy! You''ll see what I mean.

Small Worlds

The Nikon International Small World Photomicrography Competition recently announced its list of winners for 2010. The competition began in 1974 as a means to recognize and applaud the efforts of those involved with photography through the light microscope. Peering into the small worlds of animal, plants and minerals using many techniques and different instruments, this year's entries brought us images of crystalline formations, fluorescent body parts, cellular structures and more, valuable for both their beauty and insight. The lovely folks at Nikon were kind enough to share some of their images here with us, be sure to click the link above to see all the winners. (29 photos total)

This 5th Place image of a Strelitzia reginae (bird of paradise) seed magnified 10 times comes from Viktor Sykora of the Institute of Pathophysiology, First Medical Faculty, Charles University in Prague, Czech Republic. This image was made with a stereomicroscopy technique called darkfield illumination. (Courtesy of Nikon Small World) #

Magnified 100 times, a Mirabilis jalapa (four o'clock flower) stigma with pollen attached is seen. This 16th place image was made with epifluorescence and 3D reconstruction by Dr. Robert Markus Institute of Genetics, Biological Research Center of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in Szeged, Hungary. (Courtesy of Nikon Small World) #

A radiolarian, a type of zooplankton, is seen magnified 250x in this image made by Raymond Sloss of the Northamptonshire Natural History Society in Northampton, UK. (Courtesy of Nikon Small World) #

This brightfield image shows part of the structure of living specimen of Martensia sp. (red seaweed), viewed at 40x magnification. This 6th Place image was made by Dr. John Huisman of Murdoch University, School of Biological Sciences and Biotechnology in Murdoch, Australia. (Courtesy of Nikon Small World) #

Patterns of light are seen in soap film, magnified 150 times in this 18th place image by Gerd Guenther from Dusseldorf, Germany. (Courtesy of Nikon Small World) #

A Bryozoa, a tiny aquatic filter-feeder is seen at 20x magnification. Image made by Jocelyn Cheng of the Rochester Institute of Technology in Rochester, New York. (Courtesy of Nikon Small World) #

Magnified 40 times, this is a view of a bee's abdomen with grains of pollen attached. Image made by Dr. Robert Markus of the Institute of Genetics, Biological Research Center of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in Szeged, Hungary. (Courtesy of Nikon Small World) #

A single egg from a Hemiargus isola (Reakirt's blue butterfly) rests on Mimosa strigillosa (pink powderpuff) buds, viewed at 6x magnification. Image made by David Millard from Austin, Texas. (Courtesy of Nikon Small World) #

Biodiversity talks end with call for ‘urgent’ action

Optimum population trust news watch

Click here to go to the article below!

The UN biodiversity meeting in Japan has agreed a 10-year plan aimed at preserving nature. Targets for protecting areas of land and sea were weaker than conservation scientists wanted, as was the overall target for slowing biodiversity loss. Most developing countries were pleased with measures aimed at ensuring they get a share in profits from products made from plants and other organisms. Nations have two years to draw up plans for funding the plan.

“This agreement reaffirms the fundamental need to conserve nature as the very foundation of our economy and our society,” said Jim Leape, director-general of WWF International. “Governments have sent a strong message that protecting the health of the planet has a place in international politics, and countries are ready to join forces to save life on Earth.”

The meeting settled on targets of protecting 17% of the world’s land surface, and 10% of the oceans, by 2020. These are regarded as too small by many conservation scientists, who point out that about 13% of the land is already protected - while the existing target for oceans is already 10%.

Many poorer countries say they do not have the resources to implement such targets. “The forest and the other biological resources we have serve the general interests of the global environment,” said Johansen Voker from Liberia’s Environmental Protection Agency. “So we expect assistance to be able to effectively conserve our environment for the common good of the world community.”

Developed nations agreed to establish mechanisms for raising finance to help them - which could amount to hundreds of billions of dollars per year by 2020. They are required to have a plan to raise such sums in place by 2012, when Brazil will host the second Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro.

More: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-11655925

and: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/oct/29/biodiversity-talks-ministers-nagoya-strategy

and: http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/shortsharpscience/2010/10/agreement-reached-at-un-biodiv.html

This event was also reported (see below) at Short, Sharp Science, a blog form New Scientist worth a look! Click on new scientist link above!

Agreement reached at UN biodiversity convention

21:55 29 October 2010

Environment

Life

Science In Society

Sujata Gupta, reporter

In the wee hours of Friday morning, delegates attending the United Nations Convention on Biodiversity in Nagoya, Japan, reached an ambitious agreement to save the world's ecosystems.

Representing almost 200 countries, the delegates pledged to protect 17 per cent of land and inland waters and 10 per cent of the oceans by 2020. Today, 13 per cent of land is protected but only 1 per cent of the oceans.

Those conservation measures fell under a 20-point plan calling for, among other things, habitat conservation, reductions in pollution and an end to "perverse subsidies" for environmentally destructive practices.

Until Friday morning, though, one point in particular threatened to derail the entire plan: the equitable sharing of biological resources between rich and poor countries.

 This interview (below) with UN goodwill ambassador for Biodiversity Edward Norton was also found at New Scientist :

Edward Norton: What's the first rule of Peace Club?

• 13:00 28 October 2010 by Shaoni Bhattacharya
• For similar stories, visit the Interviews and Endangered Species Topic Guides

Explaining why biodiversity matters (Image: Sipa Press/Rex Features)

The Hollywood actor, long an active conservationist and fundraiser, is a United Nations goodwill ambassador on biodiversity

You became a United Nations goodwill ambassador for biodiversity in July – how did you become interested in biodiversity and conservation?

I have been interested in these issues all my life, largely because my father worked professionally in the conservation movement for most of my growing up – he was the head of public policy for the Wilderness Society [a US conservation organisation]. He founded the Grand Canyon Trust and was one of the founders of the Rails to Trails Conservancy [which works to convert disused railway routes to walking and cycling trails]. Later he initiated the [US-based] Nature Conservancy's China country programme.

So I have always been steeped in these issues through his work. And with my brother and sister, my dad was always taking us on adventures to wild places, to places of beauty, hiking, scuba diving and river rafting. He always immersed us in the intellectual and emotional values of conservation.

What does being goodwill ambassador mean to you personally?

It's a compliment to be asked, but mostly I think of it as an opportunity to engage in another way. The fact that the issue of biodiversity loss is probably less front-and-centre than, say, climate change – even though they are interrelated – made me feel there was an opportunity to assist in highlighting it.

The UN has said we have reached a crisis point with biodiversity, and you have talked about getting the message out to "street level" and that biodiversity is not just an abstract concept for an "environmental elite": how can we change this?

If you are going to look for an opportunity in a terrible circumstance like the Gulf oil spill, one thing that it illuminates is the way that ecosystem collapse and biodiversity loss has a direct negative impact on our lives. We can talk about loss of species but people don't necessarily have the context to understand that; they don't necessarily feel the connection.

Events like the oil spill can help people at least have a clearer understanding of the way biodiversity connects to our daily lives. We have to acknowledge that taking certain actions and making changes to confront an issue sometimes means the political sphere has to be engaged. It's unfortunate but true that sometimes negative consequences can drive change. Of course we all want to highlight positive stories, but highlighting negative impacts has an important role too.

You mean like highlighting the ecosystem effects of an event like the Gulf oil spill?

The spill is making that pretty apparent on its own! I like to highlight other lines of connection people might not have thought of, such as the role bees and butterflies and other pollinators play in most of our food crops. There's no synthetic or industrial way to pollinate all the plants we rely on. If you illuminate or articulate some of these connections it can help people get beyond a view of animals having only an emotional value.

The biodiversity meeting in Nagoya, Japan, is on right now: you've spoken out about the US being one of the few countries not to sign up to the Convention on Biological Diversity. What difference would it make if the US signed?

The US can't have its cake and eat it too. You can't assert that your leadership and example are meaningful on some issues and not on others.

When the US won't participate it sends a message to the rest of the world that the whole thing is gestural and not really meaningful. I think the US's formal participation would and will help authenticate the commitments and make them more substantive. The situation is not dissimilar to the impacts many people observed resulting from the US failing to sign the Kyoto protocol.

You're on the board for the Maasai Wilderness Conservation Trust, and president of its US branch. Can you tell me a bit about your own environmental and conservation interests?

I have been involved with different organisations for years as a financial supporter or on their boards. But I started to feel that in some places large non-governmental organisations are not effective in bringing their resources to bear unless there are strong local conservation partners. Local advocacy and local implementation is a component in this issue.

So I started working with the Maasai Wilderness Conservation Trust, which works with a specific Maasai community in the Chyulu hills in southern Kenya. That's where Ernest Hemingway wrote the Green Hills of Africa and The Snows of Kilimanjaro. We work with a Maasai community that owns vast tracts of wilderness between three national parks – nearly 2 million acres [800,000 hectares] of land. Even when you set up national parks, animals migrate: the health of the watersheds outside these parks is vital to life in them. It's all interconnected. An ecosystem doesn't recognise the boundaries of a park. So a lot of the health of this particular ecosystem relies on the way the Maasai use their natural resources.

The Maasai Wilderness Conservation Trust's core mission is to partner with the Maasai and to figure out many different ways they can create sustainable economic benefits by managing their land wisely. For example, the development of ecotourism, or getting lease payments for setting aside certain zones as conservancy.

You've recently set up your own social networking website for fundraising, Crowdrise. Tell me about that?

Whether you are running the London Marathon for a charity or you just want to ask people in your life to support a cause you care about, Crowdrise gives you tools to do that effectively. It's also meant to be fun.

Crowdrise has a virtual points system, like frequent-flyer miles. When people see what you are doing and they like it, they can award you points, which are redeemable against products. It sets up competitive fun.

UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon said he hoped you'd move the world from Fight Club to Peace Club when he appointed you as goodwill ambassador: what's the first rule of Peace Club?

[Laughs] I think Crowdrise's slogan is a good one. Which is: 

"If you don't give back, no one will like you."