Press release - 25 May, 2004
This morning, a Greenpeace team including swimmers, canoeists and climbers from Greece, Hungary, Germany, Netherlands and Australia are taking action to prevent a second GE shipment reaching Greek shores. The 'UBC Beaumont' contains 18,000 tons of GE soyameal from Argentina.
Greenpeace swimmers in the water, off the coast of Preveza attempting to prevent the UBC Beaumont, carrying 18,000 tonnes of GE Soyameal from Argentina, from reaching the shores of Greece.
Three Greenpeace swimmers with floating signs saying 'No entry
to GMOs' have put themselves in front of the ship and four climbers
have boarded the ship with banners reading 'No to the imports of
GE' (in Greek) and 'Don't buy GE Food'.
The 'UBC Beaumont' is expected to offload its cargo of soyameal
directly into trucks from where it could be delivered directly to
the feed industry without any opportunity for investigation by the
national government authorities. The Greenpeace activists aim to
prevent this from happening.
"Greek consumers do not want GMOs. Surveys over many years now
have shown 90% and more of the Greek population reject GMOs. This
is supported by the fact that now 48 prefectures out of 54 have
been declared as GE Free zones. There is no market for GMOs in
Greece!" said Myrto Pispini GE campaigner for Greenpeace
Greece.
Greenpeace is also highlighting the fact that millions of tons
of these GE imports are being dumped into animal feed where
consumers do not know they are used and where people are not given
the freedom of choice to avoid them because the meat and dairy
products coming from animals fed on GE feed still do not require to
be labelled.
"Greenpeace's aim is to prevent the growing of GMOs because of
the dangers they present to the environment now and for future
generations. We also aim to prevent GMO contamination of the food
supply because it is basically an experiment with public health
using a crude, potentially dangerous, outdated, unnecessary and
unwanted technology. We would frankly rather see these GE imports
banned but until they are we certainly are insisting that the
current legislation be rigorously applied," said Lindsay Keenan GE
campaigner for Greenpeace International.
Following the previous action on Saturday 22 May, an
investigation by the Greek Ministry of Agriculture concluded that
the shipment on board 'Flag Tom' targeted by Greenpeace can not at
present be imported because its documentation is not in accordance
with the new EU legislation on GMO labelling and traceability
(1830/2003).
VVPR info: Photographs from +31 646 16 2019 Video from +31 646 16 2003
Notes: Greece imports about 500,000 tons of soya annually from the U.S., Argentina and Brazil, an estimated 60% of which is GE or GE contaminated. GE soya covers over 14 million hectares in Argentina. Land is being converted for GE soya production, which leads to Argentinean families being violently removed from their lands for planting GE soya, causing an environmental and social nightmare.