Ottawa excludes provinces, environmental groups at UN meeting on biodiversity

"Canada will conduct its business behind closed doors in what we fear is an attempt to undermine the international community's efforts to protect biodiversity," says Éric Darier, coordinator of Greenpeace Canada's agriculture campaign and a delegate at the meeting.

Greenpeace anticipates that Canada will attempt to lift an international moratorium adopted by the United Nations in 2006 against "Terminator" sterilization techniques that prevent farmers from saving seeds. Canada, it is believed, would like to use GE trees to produce biofuels.

The thirteenth meeting of the Subsidiary Body on Scientific, Technical and Technological Advice (SBSTTA 13) is being held in advance of the 4th meeting of the Parties to the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety (COP-MOP/4), which takes place on 12 - 16 May 2008 in Bonn, Germany. The federal government has not yet indicated if they will exclude the provinces and environmental groups from their delegation at this meeting as well.

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