The journey of biosafety to the COP began because biotech promoters convinced United Nations agencies and Third World countries that root economic problems that contribute to the loss of biodiversity can be solved by investing heavily in biotechnology. Biotech would also mine "genetic gold" from tropical biodiversity and thus provide a rationale for preserving biodiversity.
Biotech promoters managed to include in Chapter 16 of Agenda 21 (the Rio agenda for action) a $20 billion-per-year Third World investment in biotech to solve their problems and thus protect biodiversity.
Conservation organizations objected on the grounds that a crash program of investment in an expensive technology with a poor track record for living up to its assurances, even in technologically advanced countries, would be an enormous gamble. Failure of many projects is likely, and this would increase Third World debt and thus actually hasten the destruction of nature, because ob- ligations to service ...
