IUCN deeply split over genetically engineering nature 

At the World Con­ser­va­tion Con­gress in Abu Dhabi, the Inter­na­tion­al Union for Con­ser­va­tion of Nature (IUCN) nar­row­ly vot­ed against a “pre­cau­tion­ary defer­ment” of the release of genet­i­cal­ly engi­neered wild species into nat­ur­al ecosys­tems. How­ev­er, a slim major­i­ty of IUCN mem­bers sup­port­ed a call for “addi­tion­al pre­cau­tion­ary safe­guards” on such releas­es. The Con­gress exposed deep divi­sions with­in the con­ser­va­tion com­mu­ni­ty over whether genet­i­cal­ly engi­neered wild organ­isms should be released into nature. 

New IUCN policy on ‘synthetic biology’ 

On 14 Octo­ber, the IUCN mem­ber­ship vot­ed in favour of a pol­i­cy on so-called syn­thet­ic biol­o­gy – a term refer­ring to genet­ic engi­neer­ing tech­niques used to cre­ate or mod­i­fy genet­ic mate­r­i­al, liv­ing organ­isms, and bio­log­i­cal sys­tems, both in con­tain­ment and in open envi­ron­ments. 

The pol­i­cy sug­gests that genet­ic engi­neer­ing can con­tribute to con­ser­va­tion but should not “be seen to replace” tra­di­tion­al efforts. While side­step­ping the fun­da­men­tal ques­tion of whether the genet­ic engi­neer­ing of wild species in nat­ur­al ecosys­tems should have any place in con­ser­va­tion, it sets out a case-by-case approach for approv­ing – or reject­ing – indi­vid­ual pro­pos­als. 

Biotech­nol­o­gy advo­cates cel­e­brat­ed the deci­sion. For the US NGO Revive & Restore, whose mis­sion is to “promot[e] the incor­po­ra­tion of biotech­nolo­gies into stan­dard con­ser­va­tion prac­tice,” the “vote demon­strates a deci­sion to expand … our options”. Accord­ing to the NGO, the ques­tion is no longer “whether we should use these tools” but “whether spe­cif­ic biotech­nolo­gies” can help achieve con­ser­va­tion goals. 

The San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance, also based in the US, believes tech­nol­o­gy devel­op­ers now have “IUCN’s back­ing” to move ahead with “new genet­ic tech­nolo­gies to sup­port con­ser­va­tion efforts.” 

Mean­while, devel­op­ers of con­tro­ver­sial gene dri­ve tech­nolo­gies – also called “extinc­tion on demand” — are already one step ahead, hop­ing the IUCN Coun­cil will “strength­en capac­i­ty-build­ing efforts in the syn­thet­ic biol­o­gy field”  and coor­di­nate with the UN Con­ven­tion on Bio­log­i­cal Diver­si­ty to secure sim­i­lar sup­port. 

Need for “additional precautionary safeguards” 

While tech­nol­o­gy devel­op­ers cheer the IUCN’s endorse­ment of genet­ic engi­neer­ing, the Con­gress deci­sion also includes an impor­tant addi­tion­al clause.  

In a last-minute amend­ment to Motion 087 on an IUCN pol­i­cy on syn­thet­ic biol­o­gy, the Con­gress vot­ed to call “on the IUCN Direc­tor Gen­er­al and Com­mis­sions to pro­mote tak­ing addi­tion­al pre­cau­tion­ary safe­guards (…) on the release into nat­ur­al ecosys­tems of genet­i­cal­ly mod­i­fied wild organ­isms, to mod­i­fy micro­bial com­mu­ni­ties, or that would cre­ate nov­el genet­ic ele­ments in nat­ur­al ecosys­tems.”  

At the IUCN, a motion pass­es if it receives a sim­ple major­i­ty in two cat­e­gories: gov­ern­ments (Cat­e­go­ry A) and NGOs and Indige­nous Peo­ples’ Organ­i­sa­tions (Cat­e­gories B and C). Gov­ern­ments have three votes, inter­na­tion­al NGOs have two, and nation­al NGOs and Indige­nous Peo­ples’ Organ­i­sa­tions each have one.  

The call for “addi­tion­al pre­cau­tion­ary safe­guards” was sup­port­ed by 54 per­cent of both gov­ern­ment and NGO votes. 

Vot­ing results for the amend­ment to Motion 087 call­ing for “addi­tion­al safe­guards”  

Call to hold off on engineering nature narrowly defeated

A motion pre­sent­ed by eight NGOs, call­ing for a “pre­cau­tion­ary defer­ment of the release of genet­i­cal­ly engi­neered wild organ­isms into nat­ur­al ecosys­tems,” was nar­row­ly defeat­ed. Although a major­i­ty of NGO mem­bers sup­port­ed it, the motion fell short of secur­ing enough gov­ern­ment votes. 

Results for Motion 133 call­ing for a “pre­cau­tion­ary defer­ment of the release of genet­i­cal­ly engi­neered wild organ­isms into nat­ur­al ecosys­tems”  

Save Our Seeds, along with near­ly 100 oth­er groups, had sup­port­ed the motion. At the IUCN Con­gress, we rep­re­sent­ed our umbrel­la organ­i­sa­tion Deutsch­er Naturschutzring (DNR).   

Ahead of the vote, more than 120 sci­en­tists had urged IUCN mem­bers to “sup­port a mora­to­ri­um on the release of organ­isms, prod­ucts and agents obtained through genet­ic engi­neer­ing and syn­thet­ic biol­o­gy.” They cau­tioned that releas­ing prod­ucts of genet­ic biotech­nolo­gies such as gene dri­ve organ­isms or gene-silenc­ing mol­e­cules into open ecosys­tems “could cause irre­versible eco­log­i­cal dis­rup­tions, with poten­tial­ly dis­as­trous con­se­quences for bio­di­ver­si­ty.” 

Guy Reeves, Sci­en­tif­ic Advi­sor at Save Our Seeds, com­ment­ed: “In one of the most divid­ed votes in its 77-year his­to­ry, the IUCN chose to be seen as endors­ing the use of high­ly inva­sive genet­ic tech­nolo­gies in wild pop­u­la­tions. Sad­ly, the organ­i­sa­tion has now tied its rep­u­ta­tion to exper­i­men­tal tech­niques over which it has no influ­ence and can­not pro­vide gen­uine lead­er­ship.” 

Bumpy road to the moratorium vote 

The IUCN typ­i­cal­ly fol­lows a well-estab­lished process designed to build con­sen­sus, so motions are usu­al­ly passed with broad sup­port. The mora­to­ri­um motion, how­ev­er, took a very dif­fer­ent path. 

Dur­ing two com­ment­ing peri­ods, oppo­nents pro­posed no changes to the text but sim­ply argued that the motion con­flict­ed with the pro­posed pol­i­cy on syn­thet­ic biol­o­gy. As a result, actu­al text work only began at Con­gress, once mora­to­ri­um oppo­nents realised the motion could be for­mal­ly tabled for a vote.  

In so-called con­tact groups, these groups pushed to amend the pre­am­bu­lar para­graphs to reflect their views. On the thorny ques­tion of whether genet­i­cal­ly engi­neer­ing nature belongs in con­ser­va­tion, they pro­posed lan­guage “acknowl­edg­ing dis­agree­ment about whether genet­ic engi­neer­ing of wild species in nat­ur­al ecosys­tems … is com­pat­i­ble with the prac­tices, val­ues and prin­ci­ples of nature con­ser­va­tion and the mis­sion and objec­tives estab­lished in the IUCN Statutes.”  

As time ran out, con­test­ed text—indicated by brackets—remained until the day of the vote, and mem­bers were asked to vote on mul­ti­ple amend­ments. When the amend­ed motion was final­ly pre­sent­ed, Aus­tralian NGO Min­deroo still attempt­ed to block it, cit­ing poten­tial con­flicts with the Con­ven­tion on Bio­log­i­cal Diversity’s Deci­sion 14/19 on gene dri­ves. It took sev­er­al interventions—from NGO mem­bers includ­ing DNR, Benin Eco­tourism Con­cern, ProNatu­ra, Nature Cana­da, Polli­nis, and the Cen­tre for Envi­ron­men­tal Law, as well as from state mem­ber France—to final­ly get the amend­ed motion to the vote. 

Nao­mi Kos­mehl, Cam­paign Coor­di­na­tor at Save Our Seeds, com­ment­ed: “It’s been dis­ap­point­ing to see how oppo­nents, hav­ing run out of argu­ments against the mora­to­ri­um, resort­ed to pro­ce­dur­al tac­tics to stop this motion. This almost pre­vent­ed the motion from being tabled for a demo­c­ra­t­ic vote.” 

Influence of technology developers 

Sup­port for the pol­i­cy, and oppo­si­tion to the mora­to­ri­um, was large­ly dri­ven by biotech­nol­o­gy devel­op­ers such as Tar­get Malar­ia, a con­sor­tium seek­ing to release gene dri­ves to elim­i­nate malar­ia-car­ry­ing mos­qui­toes in their native habi­tats, poten­tial­ly dis­rupt­ing ecosys­tems. Tar­get Malar­ia had a strong pres­ence at the Con­gress, along­side oth­er biotech­nol­o­gy advo­cates such as US NGO Revive & Restore, for whom the rejec­tion of Motion 133 was “mis­sion crit­i­cal”. 

Mal­ick Shah­baz Ahmed, Exec­u­tive Direc­tor of the Sun­gi Devel­op­ment Foun­da­tion and co-spon­sor of the mora­to­ri­um motion, said: “It is alarm­ing to see how a few well-resourced tech­nol­o­gy devel­op­ers have shaped the IUCN’s agen­da. Most mem­bers are unlike­ly to embrace genet­ic engi­neer­ing in nature con­ser­va­tion, yet the organ­i­sa­tion has failed to dis­tance itself from high-risk tech­nolo­gies dri­ven by com­mer­cial inter­ests. Deci­sions on new tech­nolo­gies that could endan­ger nature must be guid­ed by pre­cau­tion, integri­ty, and the voic­es of the most vul­ner­a­ble.” 

A divided Union – and a debate that continues 

The debate over genet­i­cal­ly engi­neer­ing nature has deeply divid­ed the IUCN mem­ber­ship. 

Pre­sent­ed with a broad array of emerg­ing tech­nolo­gies, IUCN mem­bers endorsed a case-by-case approach to assess­ing indi­vid­ual pro­pos­als — rang­ing from genet­i­cal­ly mod­i­fied bac­te­ria that pro­duce valu­able com­pounds in con­tained facil­i­ties, to the envi­ron­men­tal release of GM organ­isms designed to spread their altered genes rapid­ly through wild pop­u­la­tions.  

When asked whether it is right to delay the release of genet­i­cal­ly engi­neered wild organ­isms into already frag­ile ecosys­tems, about half of the mem­ber­ship — gov­ern­ments and NGOs alike — sup­port­ed that posi­tion. A nar­row major­i­ty backed a call for “addi­tion­al pre­cau­tion­ary safe­guards … on the release into nat­ur­al ecosys­tems of genet­i­cal­ly mod­i­fied wild organ­isms.”  

The ques­tion of whether genet­ic engi­neer­ing of wild species can ever be rec­on­ciled with IUCN’s mis­sion to “con­serve the integri­ty and diver­si­ty of nature” remains unre­solved.  

Benedikt Haer­lin, Save Our Seeds Coor­di­na­tor, con­clud­ed: “Hav­ing opened the door to genet­i­cal­ly engi­neer­ing nature – and failed to warn against the riski­est appli­ca­tions – the IUCN should be care­ful not to be seen as endors­ing every pro­pos­al. To pro­tect its rep­u­ta­tion and lead­er­ship in nature con­ser­va­tion, the IUCN should act prompt­ly to advance the ‘addi­tion­al pre­cau­tion­ary safe­guards’ called for by the Con­gress. It should also raise its voice loud and clear when­ev­er new genet­ic engi­neer­ing projects risk under­min­ing con­ser­va­tion objec­tives.”  

For more infor­ma­tion, con­sult the NGO coalition’s web­site here.  

Find here our joint press release after the IUCN Con­gress from Save Our Seeds, Polli­nis (France) and Sun­gi Devel­op­ment Foun­da­tion (Pak­istan).   

Image © IISD/ENB | Anas­ta­sia Rodopoulou – Franziska Achter­berg, Head of Pol­i­cy at Save Our Seeds, inter­ven­ing in the Con­gress ple­nary