Latest update April 18th, 2024 12:59 AM
May 28, 2013 Letters
DEAR EDITOR,
I am writing about an advertisement placed in your newapaper dated Sunday May 26 2013, by the Environmental Protection Agency, seeking comments on a draft National Policy on Biotechnology, Biosafety and Biosecurity. Many of your readers may or may not have seen the medium size (at best) ad. I am writing this letter with the aim of further bringing it to their attention, as well as to ask the EPA publicly a few questions.
Firstly, this draft national policy deals with the contentious issue of genetically modified organisms or GMOs. GMOs, despite which side of the fence you are on, have serious implications for the country. That is why I am curious that for an issue that is as important as this, the EPA method of seeking national consultations is a smallish/medium size advertisement directing persons to its website.
The last time I checked, Guyana had one of the lowest internet penetration rates in the Caribbean. Or is that they don’t really want public input? Any first-year environmental education student that proposed placing an ad in a newspaper and directing persons to a website as a means of obtaining public input would receive a resounding fail. It could be that the EPA has other public outreach efforts where it actually is interacting with live bodies or placed copies of the document in public places. If that is the case, an ad advising would also be in order.
Secondly, after going on the website and downloading the said document, I noted that it was dated 2005 and supposedly the third draft. Seriously? Are we providing input on a document that was prepared in 2005 in the year 2013? Surely in fluid fields as biotechnology, biosafety and biosecurity, much would have changed in the last eight years. For example, our knowledge and understanding of GMOs have increased and the report can now find peer reviewed sources on the effects of GMOs on human health rather than its scant treatment of the subject.
Despite the attempt by the EPA, either by ignorance or deliberate design, to limit the national consultations on this important document that deals with among other issues GMOs, Guyanese should read and comment on the document as much as possible (you will have to send an email or write your comments and take a bus to the EPA office or mail it).
If you don’t understand the terms and implications ask someone that is knowledgeable to help you (something the EPA should be doing). Alternatively, we can reject this method of “national consultations” by the EPA and call on its executives to get out of their air conditioned offices and go to public places and do some real consultations.
Name withheld
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