Assessment criteria for determining environmental safety of plants with novel traits.

  • Canada. Interdepartmental Executive Committee on Pest Management.
Date:
1994
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Assessment criteria for determining environmental safety of plants with novel traits. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    7/30 page 3
    A2.3 Assessment criteria: Unconfined release consists of use, without requirements of reproductive isolation, post-harvest land use and monitoring by AAFC. The environmental effects that will be assessed prior to release include: ° potential of the PNT to become a weed? of agriculture or be invasive of natural habitats, e potential for gene-flow to wild relatives whose hybrid offspring may become more weedy or more invasive, ¢ potential for the PNT to become a plant pest’, e potential impact of the PNT or its gene products on non-target species, including humans, * potential impact on biodiversity’. A2.4 Due to the broad range of PNT’s that are being developed, this document and its guidelines should be considered flexible and will likely evolve as more experience is gained. A determination of the need for unconfined release authorizations and the environmental safety assessment of PNT’s will be conducted on a case-by-case basis, founded on familiarity and substantial equivalence. A3.0 Definitions A3.1 Biodiversity: The variety of life and its processes. Biodiversity includes all life forms, from one-celled fungi, protozoa and bacteria to complex organisms such as plants, insects, fishes and mammals. It includes processes, pathways and cycles that link living organisms into populations, ecosystems and landscapes. This variety of life is dynamic and constantly changing and evolving. It is sensitive to perturbations that may result from human activity. Biodiversity is generally recognized on three levels: 2 For the purpose of this document, weeds are considered a subset of plants that may be considered pests. The term weed is used to describe a plant species that is a nuisance to humankind in that it occurs in “managed” ecosystems where it is unwanted. Weeds tend to spread easily in disturbed areas or among crops. Whereas it can be considered that any “plant out of place” is a weed, the emphasis of these guidelines is to determine whether a PNT could be successful in colonizing managed ecosystems at the expense of displacing other species, in particular cultivated crop plants. Control of very weedy plants can be both financially and environmentally costly. Should a PNT become successful in colonizing natural “un-managed” ecosystems, and in the process displace other species and disrupt those ecosystems, for the purpose of this document the species would be considered invasive of such natural ecosystems. : A plant may be a pest without necessarily being considered weedy. For instance, a pest status could result from the production of allergenic or toxic substances. Given the complexity of biodiversity, the assessment of environmental impact of PNT’s can only be | completed indirectly.
    digitised image 1
    digitised image 2
    digitised image 3