Open Letter from ‘Diverse Women for Diversity’ to World Leaders
ENVIRONMENT, 13 Mar 2023
Navdanya International Press Office – TRANSCEND Media Service
8 Mar 2023 – We, the women of the world, meeting together in Dehradun, India as the ¨Diverse Women for Diversity¨, and representing 17 nationalities and multiple cultures, welcome and support the decision of the Mexican government through the presidential decree to phase out the use of GMOs and glyphosate.
We are outraged and dismayed that the government of the United States is trying to pressure the government of Mexico to impose GMO transgenic corn in violation of Mexico´s sovereignty and its sovereign rights enshrined in international agreements.
We as diverse women of the world working for protection of Biodiversity and resisting the imposition of GMOs which destroy our biodiversity and our food sovereignty, support the Mexican government, condemn the bullying by United States and the biotechnology industry to force GMOs on Mexico and the world violating the Convention of Biological Diversity and the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety which enshrine sovereignty and the precautionary principle. We also ask the European Commission to stand by the decisions they have made under the precautionary principle.
We call on the governments to:
- Stop this strategy of pressuring the government of Mexico to accept GMO corn. Mexico is the genetic reservoir of maize globally, which we must preserve.
- Recognize and accept the policy decisions democratically adopted by a sovereign country
- Acknowledge that the policies of Mexico are based on solid international scientific evidence demonstrating the harmful impacts of GMOs and glyphosate on human and environmental health.
- Recognize that the biodiversity of maize in Mexico is essential to food sovereignty not only in Mexico, but globally. No GMO should be introduced in a country which is a centre of diversity.
We as diverse women were born as movement in the defense of biocultural diversity and resist GMOs everywhere since GMOs, pesticides and the industrial food system are the single biggest reason for the disappearance of biodiversity. We will continue our struggle in defense of life, diversity and freedom.
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Navdanya and the Navdanya movement were created by Dr. Vandana Shiva 30 years ago in India to defend Seed and Food sovereignty and small farmers around the world. Navdanya pioneered the movement of seed saving and seed freedom, which began in response to the crisis of erosion of agricultural biodiversity and introduction of GMOs and patents on seeds through intellectual property rights (IPRs) and so-called ‘free trade’ agreements. It has long fought against biopiracy, the patenting of indigenous knowledge by self-interested multinational corporations and won cases related to Neem, basmati rice and wheat in India. Navdanya promotes a new agricultural and economic paradigm, a culture of food for health, where ecological responsibility and economic justice replace the present greed, consumerism and competition which have become dominant in society. It aims at regaining the common good as a foundation for a renewed sense of community, solidarity and culture of peace. We strive to achieve these goals through the conservation, renewal and rejuvenation of the gifts of biodiversity we have received from nature and our ancestors, and to defend these gifts as commons. info@navdanyainternational.org – More…
TRANSCEND Member Prof. Vandana Shiva is a physicist, ecofeminist, philosopher, activist, and author of more than 20 books and 500 papers. She is the founder of the Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology, and has campaigned for biodiversity, conservation and farmers’ rights, winning the Right Livelihood Award [Alternative Nobel Prize] in 1993. She is executive director of the Navdanya Trust.
Tags: Diverse Women for Diversity, GMO, Genetic engineering, Genetic manipulation, Glyphosate, Mexico, Navdanya International, Organic food, USA, Vandana Shiva
This article originally appeared on Transcend Media Service (TMS) on 13 Mar 2023.
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