Bifurcated Carrots
A blog and community that provides information, news and debate about food politics, seed law advocacy, heirloom gardening, homesteading and farming.
ID: 487135527631-73
Lobbying Activity
Response to New EU Forest Monitoring and Strategic Planning Framework
10 Apr 2022
This initiative is not consistent with what is needed to repair the natural system and rewild nature in the forests of Europe.
The idea of ecosystem services is severely flawed, and only serves to make the owners of these services richer at the expense of nature. To selectively view parts of nature in this way and then place financial incentives on them, distorts their value at the expense of nature as a whole and only benefits those who seek to unsustainably exploit it. Repairing natural ecosystems is something much better done at the local level, and according to the needs of the local people who use and depend on them.
If your intention is to increase public trust, exactly the opposite will happen.
We stand completely against this initiative.
Read full responseResponse to Revision of the plant and forest reproductive material legislation
28 Jun 2021
Our choice is for the baseline: Do Nothing
Changing the PRM rules in this context will have no benefit to civil society, and risks rolling back hard fought for gains. There should be no legislative proposal at this time.
Read full responseResponse to EU 2030 Biodiversity Strategy
16 Jan 2020
The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and it's associated protocols create financial mechanisms that in effect privatizes all life on the planet. It establishes ownership, lays out restrictions on use and creates rules for transfer from one person to another or one place to another. The CBD is what makes patents on life possible.
These principles are absolutely paralyzing conservation efforts and creates incentives for destroying some biodiversity so others can be sold for a profit. In order for there to be any effective conservation efforts on a scientific-genetic level, these principles must be abandoned and all biodiversity must be free for anyone to use without restrictions or conditions.
The EU and others, by way of the CBD, have invested enormous sums of money into storing biodiversity in places like the Global Seed Vault in Svalbard, Norway. Stored genetic material has some limited value for conservation efforts, but a centralized facility is very problematic and there is really no value in storing biodiversity if it's not being actively maintained at the same time in it's native environment. When kept in storage there is no possibility for it to adapt to changing climate and disease pressures. The EU must stop it's increasing investments in storage, and focus instead on active in-situ use and maintenance, in healthy native ecosystems.
The situation is critical! Action is needed now. The EU must accept that many steps already taken have resulted in biodiversity loss, not gains. It must take action to reverse these decisions and repair the damage. Few people working with biodiversity have bad intentions, but many different ideas prevail. Bold leadership is needed to unite efforts in a new direction.
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