UN Meeting on Biosafety Agree to Advance Discussion on Socioeconomic Considerations Re LMOs

Some 1500 delegates from 100 countries to the sixth meeting of the governing body of the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety held in Hyderabad, India have agreed to advance discussions on socioeconomic issues associated with living modified organisms (LMOs). A group of experts will be convened to conduct further research and information exchange.

Agreement was also reached on such issues as risk assessment, response actions in event of unintentional movement of LMOs across national borders and types of documentation accompanying shipments of LMOs.

"Parties have found common ground on all the issues that were on the agenda of the meeting. In particular, they made notable progress on the issues of socio-economic considerations and risk assessment of LMOs and adopted an action plan on capacity-building aligned with the ten-year Strategic Plan for the Protocol," said Mr. Braulio Ferreira de Souza Dias, Executive Secretary of the Convention on Biological Diversity.

A press release from the Convention on Biological Diversity is available at http://www.cbd.int/doc/press/2012/pr-2012-10-08-cop11-en.pdf.