Draft GPUS Platform Amendment Biological Diversity
Section title: Biological diversity
Section subtitle: Conserving the great wealth of our Earth
Our position: Greens aim to ensure that no more species are lost from our planet. [This is not a realistic position. The Earth has a natural, background extinction rate. The current problem is that we are running an extinction rate about 1000 times the "normal" extinction rate, according to the leading biologists like E.O. Wilson who study this stuff. Perhaps the authors will be willing to revise the Green Position on this issue. - Woody]
Our planet's ecological systems are interlocking and interdependent. Nature’s survival strategy allows adaptability which itself results in biological diversity. Greens work to renew ecological systems so that life can nourish and renew itself. Our stewardship of biological diversity requires that we protect ecological systems so that species can renew and maintain themselves.
Green Solutions
Expand federal protection
1. Triple the amount of land protected by the Wilderness Act.
2. Triple the area of rivers protected by the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act.
3. Strengthen the Endangered Species Act.
No intellectual property rights on life
1. Oppose extending intellectual property rights to plant, animal or human life.
2. Oppose international trade agreements (NAFTA, GATT and the WTO in particular) that protect transnational, corporate control of the intellectual property of genetic material, hybrid seeds, and proprietary products.
3. Ban genetically modified organisms (GMOs) until and unless each organism, on a case by case basis, is proven safe.
4. Oppose monopolistic production of high-tech hybrid seeds that take away farmers' rights to grow their own crops using their own seeds and replacing diversity with mono-culture.
5. Oppose the U.S. demands to amend the Convention on Biological Diversity (1992) on intellectual property and technology transfer rights that would benefit the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries in regard to intellectual property and technology transfer rights.
Teach others about biological diversity
1. Support educational initiatives on organic agriculture, gardening, native plants, the outdoors, animals and wildlife.
2. Increase public access to seed banks and seed collections that emphasize traditional and heirloom seeds.
2004 PLATFORM ON BIOLOGICAL DIVERSITY.
Humanity must share the planet with all other species. Our continuing destruction of animal habitats threatens an ever-growing number of species with extinction. This not only deprives these species of their existence, but will deprive future human generations of the enrichment of having these species on the Earth.
Ecological systems are diverse and interlocking, and nature’s survival strategy can best be found in the adaptability that comes as a result of biological diversity. All policies concerning human settlement, food, energy, natural resources, water, coastal development, and industrialization should be formulated to prevent further disruption of the non-human ecosystems’ ability to maintain themselves.
1. The Green Party supports a strengthened and enforceable Endangered Species Act.
2. The Convention on Biological Diversity, first adopted at the Earth Summit in 1992, is a primary statement of purpose regarding how we can act to preserve and sustain our common genetic resources. We protest the demands of the U.S. to amend this unprecedented international agreement on behalf of the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries, with their insistence on protection of their intellectual property and technology transfer rights.
3. We encourage, and support public access to, seed banks and seed collections that emphasize traditional and heirloom seeds.
4. We call for wide-spread education on the critical importance of efforts being made to replant indigenous plant life where it has dwindled or been lost.
5. We oppose monopolistic production of high-tech hybrid seeds. This is the basis of monoculture where agribusiness relies on non-sustainable methods such as single crop varieties bred with industrial traits and grown with high input of energy, chemicals, and pesticides. This has led to a massive loss of biodiversity, displacing traditional varieties and seed stocks.
6. We encourage the use of diverse natural seed varieties passed down over many generations. Crops can be grown with he best plants’ seeds being saved season to season.
7. We oppose international trade agreements (NAFTA, GATT and the WTO in particular) that have precedent-setting provisions protecting transnational, corporate control of the intellectual property of genetic material, hybrid seeds, and proprietary products.
8. We support reintroducing native species to areas from which they have been eradicated, eliminating predator control on public lands, and reintroducing native predators where they would contribute to a viable ecosystem.
9. We should educate ourselves about animal behaviors to overcome our culture’s irrational fear of wildlife, and learn techniques of co-existence with other species.
10. Since the efforts to clone animals – and eventually humans – has been undertaken by profit-making corporations, the purpose behind such projects is to manufacture commodities. To classify a human (or any part thereof, including human DNA and body organs) as a commodity is to turn human beings into property.
