THIRD WORLD NETWORK BIOSAFETY INFORMATION SERVICE

 Dear Friends and Colleagues  

Socio-ecological factors important in GMO assessment 

While the traditional view of risk assessment is that it is an objective process conducted by neutral scientific experts, it is not value-free. This is apparent in the setting of environmental protection goals, whereby before any environmental risk assessment can be conducted, it must first be established what it is we care about, what we value, and why.  

A recently published commentary demonstrates how the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) approaches GMO risk assessment from within an ecosystem services frame in which biodiversity is only appreciated and conserved according to its instrumental value, rather than a commitment to the intrinsic value of flourishing life on earth. Further restriction to a biophysical conceptualization neglects the important ways in which ecosystems (and arguably agroecosystems) are also valued for their cultural services (e.g. aesthetic, educational, inspirational, recreational, spiritual). This exclusion works to marginalize public participation in GMO policy. Framed not as an issue of environmental ethics, but rather one of environmental science, this places GMO risk assessment in the domain of scientific expertise, negating opportunities for public engagement. 

The author, from GenØk – Centre for Biosafety, therefore argues that current attempts to enforce a strict divide between nature and culture or social and ecological systems in Europe’s risk assessment of GMOs are counter-productive. She suggests that recognizing the porosity of this boundary and shifting from a concept of environmental protection goals to socio-ecological promotion aims may offer an opportunity to break through the current European impasse over the risk assessment and use of GMOs in agriculture.  

She concludes that rather than a backward-looking comparison considering only whether the use of a GMO will create more environmental harm than conventional agriculture, which is already recognized as unsustainable, the use of promotion goals would enable society to look forward and consider new agricultural developments and technologies in light of what it wants for the future. This means that rather than just assessing the acceptability of their risks against an already questionable baseline, GM crops would have to demonstrate their positive socio-ecological function. This is the case in the Norwegian Gene Technology Act, for example. 

The abstract and conclusion of the paper are reproduced below.  

With best wishes, 

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http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S092180091400295X

Environmental protection goals, policy & publics in the European regulation of GMOs

Fern Wickson

GenØk Centre for Biosafety, Forskningsparken, 9294 Tromsø, Norway

Ecological Economics, Volume 108

, December 2014, Pages 269–273

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2014.09.025

Highlights 

* European Food Safety Authority is inconsistent on environmental protection goals.

* Biodiversity conservation is increasingly approached from ecosystem services frame.

* Ecosystem services are regularly being narrowed to exclude cultural services.

* The exclusion of cultural services marginalizes public participation in policy.

* All of these factors are amplifying the debate over genetically modified organisms.

Abstract 

One of the most divisive debates in modern agriculture concerns the use of genetically modified organisms (GMOs). In Europe, the policy debate over GMOs has been met with a persistent attempt to retreat into “sound science” as a potential unifying force. However, environmental risk assessment as an aid to regulatory decision-making is inherently entangled with questions of environmental ethics. This is particularly manifested in the setting of environmental protection goals. For the risk assessment of GMOs, the European Food Safety Authority has presented an inconsistent position on environmental protection goals. There is, however, an emerging trend for biodiversity conservation to be enfolded within an ecosystem services frame, and for ecosystem services to be reduced to biological terms. How environmental protection goals are understood, articulated and used to define risk assessment and shape regulatory decision-making is a significant factor in the entrenched debate over the regulation of GMOs in Europe. In negotiating this territory, I suggest that the attempt to enforce a strict divide between nature and culture or social and ecological systems in Europe’s risk assessment of GMOs is emphatically counter-productive, for both robust science and considered ethical action. 

Keywords 

GMOs; Risk; Environmental protection goals; Regulation; Ecosystem services; Cultural services 

Conclusion 

This commentary has drawn attention to the way in which the European Food Safety Authority presents an inconsistent position on the environmental protection goals it uses to define and shape the process of assessing the environmental risks posed by GMOs. Despite this inconsistency, the commentary has argued that there is an increasing trend for biodiversity conservation to be approached from within an ecosystem services frame and that this sidelines the view of biodiversity having intrinsic value. Furthermore, the commentary has shown how within the GMO panel of EFSA, ecosystem services are consistently narrowed to exclude cultural services and has shown how this fails to recognize the particular cultural significance of agroecosystems and works to marginalize public participation in decision-making. Arguing that all of these factors are only working to amplify rather than resolve the entrenched debate in Europe over the cultivation of GMOs, the commentary concluded by suggesting that there is a need to overcome the perceived boundary between nature and culture in the regulation of GMOs. Finally it was suggested that this could in the first instance be advanced through a shift in language and orientation away from environmental protection goals towards socio-ecological promotion aims and the operationalization of these by EFSA through, for example, their existing commitments to furthering integrated pest management and sustainability in agricultural systems. Unless the interaction between social and ecological factors can be recognized and directly addressed in the regulation of GMOs, either through embracing and further articulating the cultural services dimension of the ecosystem services frame more clearly or recognizing its limits and developing an alternative frame more able to embrace non-instrumental values, it seems likely that unproductive stalemates in Europe’s GMO debate will continue.