Times of India interview - Green Guards laugh at lobbyists

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Times of India interview - Green Guards laugh at lobbyists

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Fri, 24 Sep 2004 13:24:08 +0100

 

 

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Times of India interview - Green Guards laugh at lobbyists

 

" Whenever we consider a technological advancement, with potentially

serious irreversible threats, then we must err on the side of caution.

This does not hamper progress but encourages innovation and research for

alternatives. The companies are attempting to thrust a completely

untested, unreliable technology onto unsuspecting farmers.

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TODAY'S INTERVIEW

Green Guards

Times of India, FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 24, 2004

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/861383.cms

 

*Greenpeace carried out an unusual protest in New Delhi recently —

young activists were laughing loudly at a FICCI conference.

 

GP: We have a history of lodging creative protests to raise complex

issues in a manner that intrigues people. The protest was intended to

reveal how this exclusive conference, a thinly-disguised attempt to

promote

flawed and unpredictable technology like genetic engineering, was

attempting to label it as a solution to the current crisis in Indian

agriculture.

 

 

*Your activists are normally associated with acts of bravery on the

high seas.

 

GP: Our activists have also bravely blocked consignments of grain

contaminated with genetically modified organisms (GMOs), and ensured that

unwanted GMOs are kept out of markets where

monopolistic corporations hoped to dump them.

 

*Is not Greenpeace's opposition to GE crops anti-technology,

anti-development?

 

GP: Whenever we consider a technological advancement, with potentially

serious irreversible threats, then we must err on the side of caution.

This does not hamper progress but encourages innovation and research

for alternatives. The companies are attempting to thrust a completely

untested, unreliable technology onto unsuspecting farmers.

 

*But these companies insist that GE technology is a progressive

solution to India's agriculture crisis.

 

GP: At the conference, the only voices to be heard were those of

multinational companies promoting GE for their profits, scientists who

defend

their own research and innovations, and industrial representatives who

focus only on bottomlines. These are the same people who introduced

chemical-input based agriculture, with much the same motive. Their

present

ideas can only land our agriculture in a state of further crisis, with

devastating environmental impacts, unknown health impacts and farmers

impoverished further.

 

*What is the alternative?

 

GP: The real alternatives exist not in some remote labs, but in

indigenous knowledge. There are

examples of farmers successfully adopting integrated pest management or

non-pesticides

based management of crops. There is no need to succumb to corporate

pressure and turn our fields into laboratories for dangerous GE

experiments.

 

*What are your other campaigns in India?

 

GP: We are campaigning for corporate accountability and elimination of

hazardous chemicals and to see that companies substitute them with

safer alternatives. Bhopal serves as the most poignant reminder of the

havoc caused by chemicals and the community is still paying a high price

for development. We are campaigning to clean up the 1,000 Bhopals across

India, where the same forces and processes that created the Bhopal

disaster, force communities to live in toxic environments.

 

*What is the progress in the ship-breaking campaign in Alang?

 

GP: Our campaign against toxic chemicals in our ship-breaking campaign

has met with considerable success, and favourable responses from

governments and international bodies like the IMO. Some shipping

companies

have acknowledged our demands that ships must be decontaminated before

they are sent to ship-breaking yards. In October 2003, the Supreme Court

issued directives, putting the onus of decontaminating ships on their

owners, sending

out a clear signal to the global shipping industry that they can no

longer escape their liabilities.

 

*Has there been any real change on the ground?

 

GP: The Gujarat Pollution Control Board directed the Gujarat Maritime

Board to remove asbestos and other hazardous waste on board the British

ship, " Genova Bridge " . For the first time, they acknowledged that

hazardous wastes are inherent in ships' structures, and not just in their

cargo. Alang is one of the 1,000 Bhopals I mentioned earlier. The main

problem of toxics is still looming large. None of the ships arriving are

decontaminated, and most do not have the required inventory of toxic

materials or valid documents certifying the ship as gas-free for hot

works.

 

*Greenpeace was demanding the closure of a DDT factory in Kerala. Now

that the Supreme Court has ordered closure, what are your future plans?

 

GP: The closure notice issued to the Hindustan Insecticide Limited's

DDT factory is a significant

victory for the Eloor people and for us. We will continue to expose

violations of existing environmental laws; demand that India upholds the

various international agreements we are party to (like the Stockholm

Convention) and that zero discharge and clean production measures are put

in place. Soon we will be launching the solar generation campaign to

inspire youth to think beyond energy generated from fossil fuels. In

April, members from Europe installed a solar generator to power a Tibetan

school in Dharamsala. It will demonstrate that renewable energy is no

longer a pipe dream!