Inicia en Dominica encuentro regional sobre biotecnología
Regional workshop on biosafety opens in Dominica
A three-day regional workshop on the environmental risk assessment in biosafety began here Monday as the region prepares to participate in two important international environmental conferences later this year.
The workshop forms part of a regional project for implementing national biosafety frameworks in the Caribbean and according to the director of the Environmental Coordinating Unit here, Lloyd Pascal , “this business of biosafety is critical, is important to us”.
“We’ve made the effort to prepare ourselves because the health and wellbeing of our people as well as the safety of our environment is too important for us to neglect. It is for this reason that this important regional workshop is being held,” Pascal added.
Biosafety is the prevention of large-scale loss of biological integrity, focusing both on ecology and human health. It is used to protect us from harmful incidents.
The conference is being attended by delegates from 11 Caribbean countries and comes at a time when the region is preparing for the 12th Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (COP 12) and the Seventh Conference of the Parties serving as the Meeting of the Parties to the Cartagena Protocol (COP-MOP 7) scheduled to take place in the Republic of South Korea in October.
The key objective of the regional project is to support participating Caribbean countries in fulfilling their obligations in respect of the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety to the Convention on Biological Diversity.
“It covers issues in training, laboratory upgrades, information technology, legislation and public awareness,” said project coordinator Karen Lynch, one of the facilitators at the workshop.
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