Draft GPUS Platform Amendment Biological Diversity
NOTE FROM MARNIE: LET'S DELETE THIS SECTION AND ADD THE CONTENT TO THE CHAPTER INTRODUCTION AND OTHER SECTIONS OF THE PLATFORM. BIOLOGICAL DIVERSITY IS TOO BROAD, COMPLEX, INTERCONNECTED AND CLOSELY TIED TO ECOLOGICAL SUSTAINABILITY OVERALL TO MAKE IT A GOOD SECTION ON ITS OWN.
Section title: Biological diversity
Section subtitle: Conserving the great wealth of planet earth
Our position: Greens aim to ensure that no more species are lost from our planet.
Our planet's ecological systems are interlocking and interdependent. Nature’s survival strategy allows adaptability which itself results in biological diversity.
Our stewardship of biological diversity requires that we not disrupt ecological systems to the degree that species cannot renew and maintain themselves.
Green Solutions
1. We oppose the U.S. demands to amend the Convention on Biological Diversity (1992) for the benefit of the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries in regard to intellectual property and technology transfer rights.
2. We 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.
3. We 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.
4. . We support educational initiatives that address our culture’s irrational fear of wildlife, including economic-based conflicts between domesticated animals and wildlife species, by introducing techniques and solutions of co-existence with other species.
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.
