Civil society demands a moratorium on genetically engineered gene drives

Berlin, 1 Decem­ber 2022 - Ahead of the UN Bio­di­ver­si­ty Con­fer­ence COP 15 over 140 civ­il soci­ety organ­i­sa­tions from Africa, Asia, Europe, Aus­tralia and the Amer­i­c­as have issued a joint man­i­festo expos­ing alarm­ing risks of envi­ron­men­tal releas­es of genet­i­cal­ly engi­neered gene dri­ve organ­isms which could lead to irre­versible eco­log­i­cal con­se­quences and dri­ve entire species into extinc­tion. 

Gene dri­ves use new genet­ic engi­neer­ing tech­niques such as CRISPR-Cas to forcibly spread new genet­ic infor­ma­tion with­in the genome of pop­u­la­tions and entire species of organ­isms in nature, includ­ing traits that can cause their extinc­tion. The sig­na­to­ries of the man­i­festo are urg­ing nation­al gov­ern­ments at COP15 to resolve crit­i­cal legal, envi­ron­men­tal, biosafe­ty and gov­er­nance issues as well as fun­da­men­tal eth­i­cal and cul­tur­al ques­tions before con­sid­er­ing any envi­ron­men­tal release of gene dri­ve organ­isms.

The call for a glob­al mora­to­ri­um is con­sis­tent with demands at pre­vi­ous occa­sions includ­ing at COP13 in Can­cun and COP14 in Sharm El-Sheikh.

Bar­bara Pilz, coor­di­na­tor of the inter­na­tion­al Stop Gene Dri­ves cam­paign:

This con­tro­ver­sy will not go away. We will con­tin­ue to fight for a glob­al mora­to­ri­um on this pre­ten­tious con­cept of repro­gram­ming and extinct­ing entire species in nature.

The man­i­festo high­lights the need for thor­ough and gen­uine risk assess­ment and  uncov­ers the lack of par­tic­i­pa­to­ry deci­sion-mak­ing process­es on this top­ic to date. It pro­pos­es the inclu­sion of mul­ti-dis­ci­pli­nary exper­tise and respect for diverse knowl­edge sys­tems in any process­es of tech­nol­o­gy assess­ment involv­ing gene dri­ves. This should include indige­nous peo­ples and local com­mu­ni­ties whose ter­ri­to­ries are among those being pro­posed for the first releas­es of gene dri­ve organ­isms.

Recall­ing the goals of the UN Con­ven­tion on Bio­log­i­cal Diver­si­ty, Pilz added:

We urge deci­sion mak­ers at COP15 to approach the issue of gene dri­ves with utmost cau­tion. Once released, they can­not be con­trolled, reversed or recalled and will respect no bor­ders. This tech­nol­o­gy adds immense risks to the con­ser­va­tion of bio­log­i­cal diver­si­ty and is at odds with the con­cept of nature pro­tec­tion. Let us not cre­ate anoth­er destruc­tive lega­cy to future gen­er­a­tions.

The full text of the man­i­festo is avail­able here and it is still open for sig­na­ture.

Rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the Stop Gene Dri­ves cam­paign and of oth­er sig­na­to­ries of the man­i­festo will attend the events of the Con­ven­tion on Bio­log­i­cal Diver­si­ty in per­son in Mon­tre­al this Decem­ber and can be reached for com­ment.

Con­tact: Nao­mi Kos­mehl, Pub­lic Rela­tions Lead, ; Bar­bara Pilz, Cam­paign Man­ag­er, , 49 152 23 678426