TECHNOLOGY FORESIGHT SUMMIT - Unido

Session 3: Biotechnology
and the Environment
Issues
Biotechnology as a challenge and a help to the environment;
The effect of biotechnology on the new food standards: regional and global
views;
Public perception of biotechnology: what the public would like to know;
Biotechnology and society: global and regional views;
Genetically modified organisms and the environment.
Abstracts
Environmental and Biosafety Aspects of Commercially used GM Plants
Joachim Schiemann, Institute for Plant Virology, Microbiology and
Biosafety, Germany
The long history of safety associated with the introduction of new plant varieties
indicates that (a) risks to the environment presented by crop plants are
low, (b) field testing before commercial use and the institutional assessments
and decisions on which plants or varieties to grow as crops have been sound,
and (c) management practices in place have been sufficient to mitigate any
risks associated with a new variety. Nevertheless, the use of recombinant
DNA technologies to produce genetically modified (GM) plants has led to the
development of governmental/institutional regulations around the world that
are applied specifically to assessing the safety of such plants.
From the very early stages of genetic engineering a close relationship
between basic research, biosafety research, regulation and product development
has been established. At the so called Asilomar-Conference in 1975 leading
scientists came to the conclusion that specific biosafety research should
be performed to develop systems of biological containment, and that guidelines
should be developed for the safe use of genetic engineering. In Europe,
the well known Directives 90/219/EEC and 90/220/EEC have been introduced
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