La Via Campesina meets with the Executive Secretary of the COP-8

On March 25, a delegation from La Via Campesina composed of representatives from Canada, Honduras, Brazil, Togo, Chile, and Portugal, met with Ahmed Djoghlaf, the Executive Secretary of the Convention on Biological Diversity.

During the meeting, the secretary highlighted the importance of the partnership of peasants in the Convention. Djoghlaf affirmed that the COP-8 approved 192 decisions throughout the last seven conferences and that the rural worker partners are basic to their implementation.
Francisca Rodriguez, an indigenous woman from the Chilean organization ANAMURI (the National Association of Rural and Indigenous Women) presented to the delegation the importance of biodiversity for peasant men and women.

Pancha informed the secretary that La Via Campesina has a Commission on Biodiversity and Genetic Resources and a work plan. She also presented the difficulty faced in the last week with the COP-8 discussion on Terminator seeds and the importance of advancing in the direction of definitively banishing this type of technology.

For La Via Campesina, the rejection of the “suicide seeds” is an essential step for securely implementing the proposals on agro-biodiversity, biodiversity, and food sovereignty discussed in the COP-8.