Northland to consider GMO risks
By LIAM BALDWIN
Thursday, 7 October 2004 STRAIGHT FURROW P. l0-11

The GE debate has raged in New Zealand for years. Now, after pressure from the community, one region is looking at addressing the issues. LIAM BALDWIN looks at Northland's first step towards the potential of becoming GE-free.
NORTHLAND councils have taken the first step on a path that could lead to a ban on genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in the region.
Whangarei, Far North, Kaipara and Rodney district councils, along with Waitakere City Council, have each fronted up with $10,000 to fund an independent report which will take a hard look at potential risks posed by GMOs.
Wellington law firm Simon Terry Associates has taken on the job of putting it all together.
The councils had already commissioned a substantial document, Community Management of GMOs, and sought a legal opinion from Dr Roydon Somerville QC.
This was required to determine whether local authorities had any jurisdiction to restrict the release of GMOs.
It was Dr Somerville's opinion that precautionary objectives, policies and methods could be lawfully included in the Whangarei District Council's district plan to manage risks involving GMO-related land use.
The study commissioned by the councils will look at what risks GMOs pose to the Northland region and how they should be managed.
A driving force behind the study is Whangarei District Council monitoring and policy team leader Kerry Grundy.
He says the councils are on a path that could see the region north of Auckland declared a genetic engineering-free zone.
"However, that's just one possible outcome at the extreme end of the scale."
Mr Grundy says the report will look at a range of options.
"It will go from doing nothing through to a range of regulations to a regional prohibition of GMOs," he says. There could be an option to exclude specific crops, a type of differential regulation, or focussing on specific risks and creating rules accordingly.
The report, due for completion by the end of November, will be independently reviewed before the working party representing the councils considers it, possibly in early December.
The working party needs to agree on a recommendation to take back to all five councils.
"If all councils have an agreed position, we can sit down and draw up a district plan change."
However, for it to work, each council must adopt identical principles for change to be incorporated into their own district plans.
Mr Grundy says Northland is ideally suited to take such a step towards declaring the region GE-free.
The built-up Auckland isthmus is a huge geographic barrier separating Northland from the rest of the North Island.
Mr Grundy says if Northland does go down the GE-free path, some other areas would be likely to follow.
Community concern
Northland seems to be a centre of analytical thought concerning GMO issues.
Legal consultant Simon Terry, who has dealt with GMO issues for a number of years, says people in the region are asking all the right questions.
Whangarei District Council's Kerry Grundy agrees that people in the region appear to be more knowledgeable than those in other parts of New Zealand.
It is the community concern that has led to the joint-study sponsored by the five local authorities.
"There's a fair number of horticultural and organic people up here and a particularly strong lobby group," Mr Grundy.
"It's the lobbying and questions that have prompted the councils to do this. We didn't decide to go off and do it ourselves."
GE-Free Northland has been pushing the cause for years.
Also, Mr Grundy says, pressure has been coming from mainstream quarters, rather than from the expected "green" end of the spectrum.
"It's not just the greenies pushing this," he says. "Farmers, our primary producers, are doing this."
Much of the community pressure came from submissions as the authorities created their Long Term Council Community Plans.
Public submissions were requested and thousands received, many of them worried about the impact of GMOs in their districts.
Group formed
Zelke Grammer heads up GE-Free Northland in Food and Environment.
The group was formed in the mid-1990s in response to growing interest in genetic modification in this country.
Ms Grammer, a horticulturist growing avocadoes, tamarillos and other fruit alongside a native tree nursery 30km from Whangarei, is excited by the move made by the Northland councils.
She says it reflects the strong desire in Northland communities to take control of their region rather than relying on the Government and its agencies, such as the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry (MAF) and the Environment Risk Management Authority (ERMA).
Ms Grammer condemns the Labour-led Government for not taking peoples' concerns about GMOs seriously.
"There are simply too many unanswered questions."
Key to her argument is the need for a "strict liability" policy if any GMOs were grown in the region. That is, if GM crops were grown in Northland, the person or company responsible for them pays if anything goes wrong.
However, her preferred option is to see the region declared GE-free.
"It's now not just the farmers and the greenies lobbying for this to happen and asking the questions. It's the mayors, chief executives and chairmen who are becoming frustrated because they aren't receiving the answers," she says.
And, with Dr Somerville's legal opinion that local authorities can incorporate a GE ban or restrictive policies outside of any decision ERMA might make, the group is now feeling empowered.
"However, what frustrates me is that we have to jump through all these hoops to get things done, to get heard and to be taken seriously," Ms Grammer says.
"We won't be fobbed off anymore."
Ms Grammer's worries about GMOs relate to the direct risk to existing crops and farming, as well as the long-term sustainability of the environment.
Risks involving containment of of GM crops, the impracticality of co-existence with non-GM crops, the absence of a strict liability policy, consumer aversion to GM and no obvious market for modified crops.
"With all these unresolved issues, we have to be GE-free."
Ms. Grammer's involvement with the group began during a HortResearch GE trial involving tamarillos at Kerikeri in the Bay of Islands.
There was a high level of public concern about the trial, which began in l998, over issues of containment and gene transfer.
Since then, the Royal Commission on GM came out and said public concern was justified.
Ms. Grammer says that the "botched" tamarillo trial is just one example of why there is such a high level of distrust of government organisations to adequately protect communities, livelihoods and the environment. Now that the GE moratorium has been lifted, Ms. Grammer says that it is imperative that local authorities explore their options.
It's not just Nothland councils following this path with "symbolic" GE bans in other areas of New Zealand, including Waitakere City which is involved in the group study.
Local authorities in Bay of Plenty, Hawke's Bay and Marlborough are also starting to look at, or have imposed, symbolic GE FREE options. State governments in Australia have also taken up the cause.
While the Federal Government has opened the door to GMOs, individual state governments have imposed moratoriums of varying lengths until more answers are received concerning risks and risk management.
UNITEC sustainable productions systems senior academic Brendan Hoare is also right behind the Northland council's study.
Mr. Hoare lives in rural Waitakere and has a small certified organic orchard.
He has been a key player in Waitakere's "eco-city" approach to governance and wants to ensure that the area remains GE free.
"This is about walking the talk," Mr. Hoare says. "And, it can be done."
Under the leadership of Mayor Bob Harvey, Waitakere has strived to create an eco-city. The term is really used to describe the long-term goal of making the city sustainable in terms of development and the future.
Mr. Hoare says the eco-city concept has led to Waitakere being organic friendly. Rodney, just north of Auckland, is another district he says is friendly to organics.
Northland has started out on a direction that could lead to a total ban on GMOs, which, so far, is making many people smile.
Ms. Grammer sums it up best- "Northland is worth protecting."