Bay of Plenty submitters recently received notice of an appeal to the Environment Court, lodged by Crown Research Institute, Scion. This appeal contests the Bay of Plenty Regional Council's 'precautionary approach” to GE release and field trialling in this region.
As a Tauranga resident I am appalled that Scion is using public taxpayers' funds to take our Bay of Plenty Regional Council (BOP RC) to the Environment Court over BOPRC's sensible and responsible precautionary approach to GE. Scion demonstrates its sheer hypocrisy in, on the one hand, actively opposing regional council's policy designed to protect the public interest and, on the other hand, claiming that it supports a precautionary approach to GMOs.
Scion has received tens of millions of dollars from taxpayers to develop GE pine trees. Now it is using public money to oppose policies designed to keep it accountable to the communities that fund it.
I support BOPRC's sensible move to protect our region's biosecurity and primary producers and to honour its obligation to manage natural and physical resources sustainably. The precautionary GE wording that Scion is attacking is simply the region's insurance policy. The council have included a commentary outlining the documented inadequacies of present legislation under the HSNO Act. This is an important first step in protecting ratepayers from unintended adverse impacts from GMOs.
Community concerns over GE experimentation in the field continue to grow after a number of documented breaches of the conditions of approval by ERMA for GE field trials (including NZ Crown Research Institutes Scion, Crop & Food Research, AgResearch and HortResearch).

Dr Ron Lopert, Welcome Bay.