Please remember the 'guiding questions'
[#1228]
I want to thank those of you that have posted comments to the Roadmap.
From some questions that I have received, though, I have the impression that people think that they are mainly invited to react to the 'discussion items' in the advance draft of the roadmap. Although these are important issues, I would like to draw your attention also to the other 'guiding questions' that were posted:
- Does the Roadmap provide a clear description of the risk assessment process in the context of Annex III?; do you have suggestions for improvement?
- Is the Roadmap useful for you, to improve your grasp on the LMO risk assessment process, and for capacity building purposes; do you have suggestions for improvement?
- Your comments to the Roadmap, textual comments and comments on content, e.g. items or considerations that are missing, as well as further discussion items that you feel should be considered, are very much appreciated.
- Do you see value in the Roadmap as a structure for the effective use of information and guidance documents on risk assessment, as explained in the introductory text on the website of the Roadmap; do you have suggestions for improvement?
- Could you please provide us with more examples of information documents, and indicate where in the Roadmap they should be assigned?
The Sub-working Group on the Roadmap would really appreciate if you would also take these questions into consideration in your reactions.
posted on 2009-07-02 06:50 UTC by Mr. Hans Bergmans, PRRI
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RE: Please remember the 'guiding questions'
[#1240]
In response to the guiding questions I would like to mention the following:
Currently Moldova is on the stage of elaboration of risk assessment rules and regulation. Given that my country has less experience in providing risk assessment/management on GMOs, I find that the draft roadmap is useful and could be extremely helpful to guide us in elaboration of national documents. The structure of the roadmap is in context of Annex III and represents the tool for the risk assessment process.
I would like to suggest that the roadmap as the guiding document should be discussed and considered by the Meeting of Parties (MOP5) and become a legally binding document. Also it would be accompanied with a glossary and explanatory note, containing a detailed specification of definitions, case studies and examples. For example: Step 1 (a) to give details to definition of biological characteristics of recipient organism; Step 1 (g) description of habitat for the likely receiving environment: provide more details of what information is needed here.
In addition I suppose that the risk assessment procedure should be based on the ecosystem approach that will take into account all the components and processes within the ecosystem.
While the risk assessment should be performed in scientifically sound and transparent manner, it is essential to ensure the broad involvement of different stakeholders, as government, academia, NGOs, business, farmers, local communities etc.
As to the co-existence issue, I think this should be included in the roadmap as the component referred to adverse environmental effects due to out-crossing. I agree with the view point of Hans that we can avoid using of the term ‘coexistence’ for environmental risk assessment.
In my opinion, the draft roadmap is understandable and can be equally used by the national experts with different experience.
Angela
posted on 2009-07-03 12:16 UTC by Angela Lozan
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RE: Please remember the 'guiding questions'
[#1243]
First of all, I appreciate SWG and all comments so far.
Regarding “guiding question”, I think this present draft is well arranged and useful for environmental risk assessment of LMO from our experience in Japan – Japan has approved 76 GE crops for commercial use so far.
On discussion item 13, I agree that management strategies adopted for co-existence issues MAY be relevant for reduction of environmental impacts of LMOs, but, as the draft mentioned, “the issue of co-existence concerns the potential economic loss”.
Step5 is the step to determine whether or not the risks are acceptable or manageable – the risks are identified in step 1-4.
Thus, I think, where co-existence is referred in points to consider of step 5, it may leads to confusion and misunderstanding that any other risks/issues are dealt in step5.
In conclusion, I think that co-existence should be mentioned only under the heading “related issues”.
posted on 2009-07-03 13:27 UTC by Kazuyuki SUWABE
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