Posted 24th May 2001

Ttion for a GE-Free Environment Aotearoa New Zealand Online at http://nzgefree.nelson.org.nz" nzgefree.nelson.org.nz Join the GE-Free Environment Postcard Campaign! From the Coalition for a GE-Free Environment Aotearoa/NZ The Royal Commission into Genetic Modification will be reporting back to
the Government July 27. It is very important that the Government makes the right decision about the future place of genetic engineering in our country. o this end, a number of groups have joined together for a postcard
campaign to 5 of the key governmental decision-makers.

They are:

· Helen Clark,
· Marian Hobbs (Minister for the Environment),
· Annette King (Minister of Health),
· Pete Hodgson (Minister of Research, Science and Technology and
Minister for CRIs),
· Jim Sutton (Minister of Agriculture).

50, 000 postcards have been made for each Minister, and will be distributed around the country for the public to sign and send back to the Ministers. The postcards can be viewed at http://nzgefree.nelson.org.nz.
The essential demands to the Ministers are not to release GE into the environment or the food chain.

We have asked each minister to:

§ ban all field trials and commercial releases of GE
§ keep GE foods out of the country
§ restrict GE to contained laboratories

While these demands do not cover all of the issues of concern to the public or even to our organisations, these are the fundamental themes that we all agree on.

The 'Coalition' is made up of groups sharing a number of concerns around the release of genetically engineered organisms into the environment and the food chain. It has been called solely for the purposes of this
postcard campaign. To find out who we are, go to nzgefree.nelson.org.nz/groups The postcard campaign is just one of the activities being organised. The postcards will need to reach the government before August.

We invite your organisation
1. to be an official supporter of the above-stated demands of this campaign

AND/OR

2. to distribute these cards among your members/networks AND/OR
3. to contribute to production and distribution costs of the campaign.