New Zealanders Await GMO Report

When you fill out a customs declaration form for entering New Zealand, you are asked if you are carrying any of a long list of animal and plant products. Are you carrying camping gear and boots, riding equipment, and clothing that may have been in contact with farm animals? Have you been on a farm or in a forest in the last 30 days? In a world increasingly worried about alien species and imported livestock diseases, perhaps no other country has been as traditionally concerned about introducing unwanted species than New Zealand. So it may not be surprising that perhaps nowhere has public participation in the debates about the introduction of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) been more focused recently. In April 2000, the New Zealand government appointed a Royal Commission on Genetic Modification to investigate and advise on the nation's policy about genetics science and technology. During subsequent months of hearings, public consultations, and written submissions, the New Zealand capital of Wellington hosted a parade of representatives from scientific, industry, environmental, and other organizations from around the world. Tasked with examining future national strategies on GMOs, the commission ended formal proceedings recently and is scheduled to report with policy recommendations in late July. Commission chairman Sir Thomas Eichelbaum said in a closing statement, "Thanks to the information provided, and the exhaustive debate we have heard ..., we consider we have the necessary background to enable us to complete our task." There is no shortage of information or debate. The commission listened to testimony from more than 330 witnesses that resulted in almost 5,000 pages of transcripts. It held 15 major public meetings, a youth forum, and 10 regional meetings, known as hui, for consultation with Maori, New Zealand's first inhabitants. The commission is now in the middle of the tough job of consolidating all of that information, along with concerns from more than 10,000 separate written submissions from the general public. Because of the extensive amount of material submitted, the executive government in mid-May extended the report's due date two months from its originally mandated June 1 deadline to allow more time for the commission to consider all evidence. "Genetic modification is an issue that has implications for everyone," said Environment Minister Marian Hobbs. "Unnecessarily rushing a report on those implications would be most unwise." The commission's report is expected by many to be a defining baseline for future national policy that may have far-reaching implications for agricultural trade as well as for the future of New Zealand's biological research community. Global Perspectives The global implications of controversy over genetically modified foods, genetic engineering, and cloning can be clearly seen in the number of international experts and companies in attendance at the New Zealand hearings. But there is a very local significance to the commission's deliberations. New Zealand is a country with a complex history of dealing with ecological issues and problems with non-native species. Only a handful of mammals are indigenous. But by the late 19th century, after decades of British colonial introduction of deer, rabbits, exotic birds, and other game animals, the island faced what other countries would experience in the wake of introduced animals: rampant overpopulation of species without natural predators. New Zealand, at 104,450 square miles, is about the size of Colorado, but it has a smaller population, less than 4 million. About 80 percent of New Zealanders live in urban areas, leaving a large amount of the country sparsely populated. Remote and isolated, in many ways New Zealand is a western society mixed with the Maori culture. Maori make up about 10 percent of the population, and inclusion of Maori cultural philosophy has become increasingly important for government policy, including policy discussions about GMOs. New Zealand prides itself on its "clean green" image. Much of the opposition testimony about GMOs reflects that pride, plus concerns about uncertainty about introduced species. In a March closing statement, Greenpeace recommended a ban on release of GMOs into the environment, urging genetic engineering should stay in the laboratory. "There are indeed many species that should not be introduced into our country. Indeed, there are all too many that we would, if given a second chance, not release. However, the organisms or species produced using genetic engineering techniques are a new class of species that had the inherent potential to cause ecological harm," the statement said. The four-person commission is made up of a scientist, a judge, an Anglican minister, and a doctor who is also an expert in Maori-related issues. The participation and submissions were divided into several groups: formal hearings of "interested parties," public hearings, and submissions. Finally, there were Maori regional and national meetings, culminating in a three-day national hui in April. The parade of interested parties, groups that applied to testify in front of the commission, took place a few blocks away from the Beehive, New Zealand's Parliamentary headquarters, in a large low-ceilinged makeshift hearing room on the eleventh floor of an office building. The room was set up like a courtroom, with long tables for the four commissioners, witnesses, and counsel and cross-examiners. There was a small table for the press, and another for the court reporter, who occasionally asked witnesses to repeat themselves--especially fast-talking Americans flown in by both sides of the debate to serve as witnesses to the benefits or dangers of genetic engineering. The courtroom atmosphere reflects the legality of the commission's proceedings. Even from reading through the testimonies, there is the conflict between looking at very specific effects and the philosophy that people feel imbues the subject. The cross-examination and the questioning of the commissioners took that specificity very seriously, narrowing parties' comments down to exactly the remarks parties are expert to give. Consider the breadth of the weeks of interested parties hearings: Week 1: Agricultural research organizations including the New Zealand forest industries council and Dupont New Zealand. Weeks 2 and 3: Universities and institutes involved in molecular biology, such as the Institute of Molecular BioSciences at Massey University. Weeks 4 and 5: Agricultural trade groups including the New Zealand Dairy Board and the Federated Farmers of New Zealand. Week 6: Organic agriculture communities Week 7: Groups focused on biomedical research and healthcare, such as the Cystic Fibrosis Association of New Zealand. Week 8: The general scientific community, such as the Royal Society of New Zealand, the nation's equivalent of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences. Weeks 9 and 10: Environmental and health advocacy groups, such as Greenpeace and the vocal GE Free New Zealand, known as RAGE. Week 11: Religious organizations. Week 12: National organizations serving Maori interests. Week 13: Closing statements from some of the major organizations of the previous weeks. Keiko Tanaka, a sociologist formerly at the University of Canterbury, worked on the social sciences section of the Royal Society's submission that recommended more transparent decision-making and greater public outreach from regulatory agencies. Tanaka noted with interest how the submission process allowed the biological sciences community to define boundaries on the GMO issue. It was an opportunity for biologists to stake a claim, she said. Some scientists and other university personnel complained their voices were not heard in the university submission process above the roar of the molecular biologists. Science and the Public There is an increasing call for public consultation on science policy. Consider a two-month online discussion in the Fall of 2000 sponsored by the British Council, "Science and Society: Towards a Democratic Science." Part of that discussion focused on an October paper by Brian Wynne, director of the Centre for Science Studies and Science Policy at Lancaster University. Wynne reviewed recent initiatives to engage the public in science policy deliberations. "That mounting sense of crisis of public mistrust, or lack of authority for science, is the context for the growing turn to more public participation in what have hitherto been assumed to be exclusive scientific domains of policy-making," Wynne wrote. He argued that what was important is the movement toward greater two-way dialogues between the public and the scientific and science-policy communities. In the many dialogues in the Royal Commission framework, one of the paramount issues confronting the commission, predictably, is that of laboratory genetic experimentation versus release of genetically modified organisms. Genetic opposition comes from groups well-known internationally, such as Greenpeace, as well as groups local to New Zealand. Among the concerns: the unpredictability, uncertainty, and irreversibility of genetic engineering, particularly with regard to field trials and the release of GMOs into the environment. Photo: Dave AmberOpposition from the public against genetic engineering is prominently displayed by graffiti on the side of an art gallery in downtown Aukland. On the other side are the multitude of research organizations and agriculture trade groups concerned with New Zealand being left out of both the global marketplace and evolving biotechnology research community. "The opponents to genetic modification have failed to make a substantial case for [New Zealand] to do anything other than pursue the status quo," says Francis Wevers, executive director of the New Zealand Life Sciences Network, an alliance of biotechnology research organizations. Groups such as Wevers' argue that an appropriate level of caution already exists in New Zealand. "We should continue to be able to do field trials of genetically modified plants and other organisms which seem to have the potential to be commercialized," he says. "When those field trials have been completed and those plants have been shown to operate within an appropriate safety framework which protects the environment and human health, then companies which have made the investment in that research should be able to realize that investment." Greenpeace also urged that the Commission recommend that New Zealand legislate a genetic engineering-free environment outside of the lab and that no field trials or release of GMOs into the environment be allowed. "Greenpeace believes that a GE-Free environment policy reflects the aspirations and desires of many communities that make up our society," the group said in its March closing statement. Royal Commission hearings are few and far between. They are expensive, requiring a great marshaling of resources. Commission recommendations are not binding. Some people note that the pro-nuclear power recommendations of a 1976 Royal Commission were never implemented because of public opposition to things nuclear. However, the nuclear issue was more easily defined. The Royal Commission's Web site displays the commission's icon, a Maori-inspired version of a double helix. The site says the symbol "represents ancestral guardianship and the application of wisdom in care and direction for the future," an epigram that underscores the social and scientific significance placed on the commission's deliberations. After the commission finishes the difficult work of preparing its report, another difficult step will be to decide how to implement the recommendations. Dave Amber (damber@nasw.org) is a freelance science writer in College Station, Texas. New Zealand Genetics Researchers Feel Effects of Regulatory Restraints Geneticists in New Zealand compete with researchers in the United States, the United Kingdom, and elsewhere for publication in top -tier scientific journals such as Nature and Science. But even as they publish globally, they research locally. Research moratoria and local regulations have an effect on scientists of any nation trying to succeed in the very competitive international research community. Last year, the New Zealand government instituted a voluntary research moratorium on genetics research that might release GMOs into the environment, which has halted ongoing projects and delayed the start of others. But of greater concern to some in the New Zealand genetics community are regulations for importing or working with routine laboratory genetic manipulations. Much of the dispute surrounds activity of the government's Environmental Risk Management Authority (ERMA), charged with administering the 1996 Hazardous Substances and New Organisms (HSNO) Act. HSNO applies to importation of new organisms. "Every time [researchers want] to import an oncomouse into New Zealand, they have to get an approval from the Environmental Risk Management Authority," says Francis Wevers, executive director of the New Zealand Life Sciences Network, a consortium of biotechnology research organizations. That translates into a significant amount of paperwork, financial burden, and a lot of time waiting. "Nobody argues with the context of having a record of what it is that they're doing. But the notion of having to get a prior approval from a central government authority before anything can happen at all is where we get in the way of good science," Wevers adds. As New Zealand scientists compete with their peers in other countries for valuable journal space, they fear regulations will hurt their research competitiveness. "My personal experience is that it took me three months and three revisions to a 22-page application form just to obtain permission to transform [Escherichia] coli with a plasmid so we could obtain DNA for in vitro translation," says Mark Grimes, a researcher at Massey University's Institute of Molecular and Biological Sciences. "This project died because the postdoc left before all the forms were in place." In its final statement during the recent GMO debates, the New Zealand Association of Scientists (NZAS) cited New Zealand as one of the most over-regulated nations in terms of low-risk GMOs used in laboratory research. The association said about 2,000-3,000 scientists in New Zealand work with genetic modification technologies. "The ability of these scientists to compete internationally is critically dependent on continued access to these technologies. Furthermore, without access to GM technologies, New Zealand's international competitiveness and capacity to effectively collaborate with scientists overseas will be severely compromised." Some scientists say excessive regulations could add to a brain drain in New Zealand of geneticists heading to the United States and other countries. "The restrictive stance on the use of standard research tools--recombinant DNA technology--is the nail in the coffin for scientists," adds Grimes. However, ERMA has been in the process of reviewing those regulations. And the work of the Royal Commission has brought more attention to the regulatory process and its restrictions on researchers. ERMA is looking ahead to possible changes in HSNO-related regulatory structure that would make it easier for scientists to work with low-risk genetic manipulations--to notify, rather than seek approval of their laboratory work. --Dave Amber

New Zealanders Await GMO Report

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