Germany
June 19, 2009
Source:
GMO Compass
In
Magdeburg, capital city of the German province of Saxony-Anhalt,
the regional court last week sentenced six opponents of gene
technology to compensation of damage caused. In April 2008, the
defendants had destroyed a field trial of genetically modified
(GM) wheat in the nearby village of Gatersleben. The magnitude
of the compensation has not yet been set.
The court determined that the four women and two men acted
against the law on the April 21, 2008 as they entered the field
trial area and destroyed wheat plants. The gene-technology
opponents must pay the cost of this harm. In a civil suit, the
plaintiff Leibniz
Institute of Plant Genetics and Crop Plant Research (IPK
Gatersleben) claimed the equivalent of 245,000 euros in damage.
However, the court recognised only a value of 104,000 euros as
legitimate.
The anti-gene-technology activists now have four weeks in which
to assume a position. Subsequently, the court will decide upon
the sum to be paid. According to a speaker for the court, an
application by two defendants for aid with legal costs has been
rejected due to "malicious behaviour".
Two genes from barley and broad beans had been introduced into
the GM wheat developed by the IPK. The transport of specific
building blocks of protein into the wheat kernels is expected to
be improved thereby and consequently to enhance the quality of
the resulting animal feed. The aim of the field trial was to
test the manner in which this concept functions, as well as the
behaviour of the GM wheat under open field conditions.
Gene-technology opponents had objected to the field trial
primarily due to its proximity to the Gatersleben gene bank, in
which 150,000 seed samples from 3,000 types of plants including
wheat are kept. Each year, a portion of these samples are
planted on small lots and propagated. Fears exist that the GM
wheat could out-cross into such samples and thereby endanger the
seed stores. The activists had cited the German legal concept of
"übergesetzlicher Notstand" ("extra-statutory necessity") in
claiming the destruction as a legitimate instrument towards
avoiding damage to the gene bank.
The IPK Gatersleben as well as the agencies responsible for
approval had ruled out the possibility that the field trial
could pose a threat to the gene bank. The trial lots were
separated from the propagation lots of the gene bank by a
distance of 500 metres. Furthermore, wheat is self-pollinating,
which allows the reliable elimination of out-crossing. The gene
bank in Gatersleben has propagated numerous wheat types from a
variety of provenances for fifty years without a case of
intermixing to date.
After the destruction, IPK discontinued field trials with the
developed GM wheat in Germany.
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