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A United Nations conference held to reach a global protocol on the safety of genetically modified organisms opened this week in Cartagena, Colombia, with signs that African countries are preparing to compromise in order to achieve a positive outcome.

Until now, the Africa group has demanded a comprehensive legal instrument to cover the transport and impact of all genetically modified produce. “We're ready for debate. But we also want to be flexible,” says Tewolde Berhan Egziabher, general manager of the Environmental Protection Agency of Ethiopia, who acts as the group's spokesman.

Egziabher says the group may be willing to compromise on its insistence that exporters would need consent from an importing country before shipping all types of genetically modified material. “We realize that there is a difference between live and dead modified organisms,” he says, adding that the need for advance informed agreement may not apply to all types of modified produce.

The protocol will be finalized at the end of the special conference of the UN biodiversity convention next Tuesday (23 February). African countries are aware that failure to agree on a protocol will benefit their main opponents in the negotiations, the so-called ‘Miami group’ of countries, which includes the United States, Canada and other large agriculture-exporting countries.

This group, along with biotechnology and agri-chemical companies, wants a protocol restricted to regulating trade in live genetically modified organisms. They believe that a protocol that extends to genetically modified products will impede international trade.

But Egziabher says the Africa group will not shift on other contentious issues including demands for a regime for compensation in the event of transport accidents, and recognition of a country's right to refuse shipment of any genetically modified material.

Countries in the European Union, in particular, argue that countries should only be allowed to refuse shipment if genetically modified material fails an agreed scientific risk assessment of its impact, for example on biodiversity. But Egziabher says that the criteria should include the socio-economic effect of importing the material, as well as public attitudes to genetic modification.

Val Giddings, a vice-president of the Biotechnology Industry Organization in the United States, believes that few countries will agree to a treaty along these lines. He believes that the Africa group's concerns about the impact of genetic modification on biodiversity are misplaced, and claims that biotechnology benefits biodiversity.