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The production of agrofuel crops and its effects on biodiversity and livelyhoods were a highly contested issue during COP9 of the Convention on Biological Diversity in Bonn in May 2008. Numerous sessions took place, often till late in the evening and a final compromise was only found around 1:30 in the night in a closed meeting between a few countries.
Now the CBD Secretariat calls to "Parties and other Governments, indigenous and local communities, and relevant stakeholders and organizations [...] to submit information on experiences on the development and application of tools relevant to the sustainable production and use of biofuels as well as relevant information from research on, and monitoring of, the positive and negative impacts of the production and use of biofuels on biodiversity and related socio-economic aspects, including those related to indigenous and local communities."
Details are available at the CBD website.

South Africa’s Agriculture and Research Council (ARC) has announced their intention to apply to the SA government for permission to make GM potatoes commercially available, The potato in question is a Bt potato carrying the antibiotic resistance gene nptII as a marker - the same antibiotic resistance gene that currently holds up the approval procedure of BASF's starch potato Amflora in Europe.
Campaigners from South Africa report that ARC’s GM potato work is funded by USAID and they are afraid that this Bt potato would be used to push GM crops on other African markets, even though many countries in the region have imposed bans or biosafety restrictions on GM food; countries to which at the moment about 90% of South Africa's potato production are exported.
Organisations like the African Centre for Biosafety and BioWatch South Africa therefore call for support and and signatures to stop this approval.

The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) responsible for the environmental risk assessment of GMOs - or more accurately: reponsible for reading the papers submitted by companies who want to import or cultivate their GM crops in the EU - invites comments on its updated Guidance Document of the Scientific Panel on Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO)for the risk assessment of genetically modified plants and derived food and feed.
Deadline is 21 September, and details are availabe at the EFSA website

The discovery of a new pathotype of the Papaya leaf distortion mosaic virus (PLDMV, P-TW-WF) from papaya in Taiwan shows that claims like "virus resitance" are really only of relevance to the specific virus targeted, and that new GM varieties can just as well be suspectible to other viruses - or even more so.
The new pathotype was identified from diseased papaya grown on an isolated test field where transgenic papaya lines resistant to Papaya ringspot virus (PRSV) were evaluated. In a scientific article, the authors come to the conclusion that "susceptibility of all our PRSV-resistant transgenic papaya lines to PLDMV indicates that the virus is an emerging threat for the application of PRSV-resistant transgenic papaya in Taiwan and elsewhere."
So what's the point of further developing a papaya resitant to one virus, if the GM crops help the development of new pathotypes of other viruses along already during the field testing of the GMO?
Bau et al. (2008): Potential Threat of a New Pathotype of Papaya leaf distortion mosaic virus Infecting Transgenic Papaya Resistant to Papaya ringspot virus. Phytopatology 98, 848-856.

A new study from the GenOk Centre for Biosafety in Tromso show a reduced fitness of Daphnia magna fed on Bt maize MON810. Daphnias fed on MON810 had a higher mortality rate, less females reached sexual maturation, and the overall egg production was lower compared to D. magna fed isogenic maize. Since this reduced fitness after feeding on Bt maize coincided with an earlier onset of reproduction, the scientists concluded a toxic effect rather than a lower nutritional value of the GM-maize.
After adverse effects of Bt maize on caddis flies last year, this is no the second study showing possible adverse effects of Bt maize on aquatic organisms. Meanwhile the environmental risk assessment of GM crops in the EU does not include aquatic ecosystems.
Bøhn T, Primicerio R, Hessen DO & Traavik T (2008): Reduced Fitness of Daphnia magna Fed a Bt-Transgenic Maize Variety. Archives of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology, DOI 10.1007/s00244-008-9150-5.

The president of the European Commission Barroso came up with a new idea to solve the problem that so far there has never been a qualified majority to approve of a GM crop: he simply wants to get Member States to agree on GMOs behind closed doors.
If there is no qualified majority either in favour or against an application, that is a given number of votes that is higher then just a simple majority, then it is up to the Commission to take a decision. That the EU Commission is described as undemocratic is nothing new - but does the Barroso have to make it so blatantly obvious? And is he really hoping that those countries that abstain from the vote, or even vote against the approval of a GMO can be pressured into conforming to his wishes once the public can't see what's happening?

In 2007 and 2008, the German authorities approved of 'field-trials' with the GM potato Amflora by BASF even though the goal was/is not to do any research but simply to produce seed potatoes for the case that Amflora actually gets a cultivation approval in the EU. One of the conditions was that no potatoes would be left on the field afterwards. Already in autumn 2007, a number of potatoes were discovered on one of the fields after the harvest. Now, a season later, it is quite obvious that GM potatoes cannot be contained: As the newspaper taz reported the field is now planted with maize - and among that a number of potato plants can be found.
The new condition from the German authorities: spray the field again with herbicides once the maize is harvested. So instead of a field trial that left no potatoes on the field after harvests, we now end up with at least two additional applications of herbicides (and possibly more to come), wild boar feeding on left over potatoes in winter 2007, and a representative from BASF that simply states: "Of course there will be potatoes on the field in the next season."
Now this was a field trial on a few fields with a lot of public attention. How will things develop if Amflora were to be cultivated commericially?

Thanks to a lot of hard work of NGOs and civil society organisations, the EU Envrionmental Committee decided to drop its agrofuel targets from 10 to 4%. Together with a decision in the UK this shows that the uncritical hype to replace fossil fuels by crops without changing much about fuel and energy use ist over, and that there are serious doubts whether the production of agrofuels can be sustainable and fair.

On Friday, 30 May 2008, when COP9 closed, the German Ministry on Environment issued a press release, summarizing the results. For GM trees it simply stated: "The de-facto moratorium for the use of genetically modified trees will be continues." (Für den Einsatz von gv-Bäumen wird das faktische Moratorium fortgesetzt.) But now, a few days later, the text is changed: "On the topic of GM trees it was decided that without a risk assessment parties to the Convention have the right to renounce the use of GM trees." (Zum Thema Gentechnisch veränderte Bäume wurde beschlossen, dass ohne Risikoanalyse Vertragsstaaten das Recht haben, auf den Einsatz gentechnisch veränderter Bäume zu verzichten.)
The German Minister of Environment is currently president of the COP, so he should know: Is it a de-facto moratorium or not? Or is it one that can't be called like that?

The Fourth Meeting of the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety took place on 12-16 May in Bonn, Germany. The Cartagena Protocol sets rules for the international trade with living modified organisms (LMOs). Finalizing a Liability and Redress system was on the agenda for this meeting, after negotiations on this topic had been going on for several years.