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  3. Banning Biotechnology on Madeira Madeira is more than 500 kilometers from

Banning Biotechnology on Madeira Madeira is more than 500 kilometers from

游客2023-12-28  20
问题    Banning Biotechnology on Madeira
   Madeira is more than 500 kilometers from the African coast and is officially one of the "outermost regions" of the European Union. Despite that far-flung status, Madeira catapulted into the center of the Union’s agricultural and environmental affairs last year when Portugal asked the European Commission for permission to impose an unprecedented ban on growing biotech crops there.
   Last week, the Commission quietly let the deadline pass for opposing Portugal’s request, allowing Madeira, which is one of Portugal’s autonomous regions, to become the first EU territory to get formal permission from Brussels to remain entirely free of genetically modified organisms. Madeira will probably go ahead and implement the ban, a spokeswoman for the Portuguese government said Friday.
   Individual European countries and regions have banned certain genetically modified crops before. Many consumers and farmers in countries like Austria, France and Italy regard the crops as potentially dangerous and likely to contaminate organically produced food. But the case of Madeira represents a significant landmark, because it is the first time the Commission, which runs the day-to-day affairs of the European Union, has permitted a country to impose such a sweeping and definitive rejection of the technology.
   The Madeirans’ main concerns focused on preserving the archipelago’s biodiversity and its forest of subtropical laurel trees. Such forests were once widespread on the European mainland, but were wiped out thousands of years ago during an earlier period of climate change. That has left Madeira with " much the largest extent of laurel forest surviving in the world, with a unique suite of plants and animals," according to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, which named the Madeiran laurel forest a World Heritage Site in 1999. The forest is also a growing attraction for tourists, who make up a significant portion of Madeira’s earnings.
   In seeking to ban biotechnology on Madeira, the Portuguese government told the Commission that it would be impossible to separate crops containing genetically engineered material from other plant life. The "risk to nature presented by the deliberate release of GMOs is so dangerous and poses such a threat to the environmental and ecological health of Madeira that it is not worthwhile risking their use, either directly in the agricultural sector or even on an experimental basis," the Portuguese told the Commission.
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答案    马德拉岛禁用生物技术马德拉岛距非洲海岸500多公里，是欧盟官方认定的“最边远地区”之一。虽地处边远，去年马德拉岛却成为欧盟农业和环保事务的中心议题，当时葡萄牙要求欧盟委员会允许其颁布一项前所未有的禁令，禁止在岛上种植生物技术作物。
   欧盟委员会上周悄悄地拖过了反对葡萄牙请求的最后期限，这使作为葡萄牙自治地区之一的马德拉岛成为布鲁塞尔正式允许继续全面禁止转基因作物的第一块欧盟领土。葡萄牙政府的一位女发言人星期五说，马德拉岛现在就可能采取行动，执行这项禁令。
   某些欧洲国家和地区过去也曾禁种某些转基因作物。奥地利、法国、意大利等国的许多消费者和农民认为转基因作物有潜在危害，可能污染有机食品。然而，马德拉岛的情况却成为一个重要标志，因为这是作为处理欧盟日常事务机构的欧盟委员会第一次允许一个国家全面、明确地拒绝这项技术。
   马德拉岛人主要关注如何保护这一群岛的生物多样性及那里的亚热带月桂树。月桂树在欧洲大陆曾随处可见，数千年前却因早期气候变化绝迹。联合国教科文组织称，这让马德拉岛拥有“世界上仅存的最大规模月桂树林和一批珍稀动植物”。1999年，联合国教科文组织将马德拉岛的月桂树林列入世界遗产遗址。这片树林随之成为吸引越来越多游客的一大景点，而游客为马德拉岛带来可观收入。
   葡萄牙政府争取在马德拉岛禁用生物技术时，向欧盟委员会提出：将含有转基因物质的作物与其他植物分开是难以做到的。葡萄牙向欧盟委员会指出，“有意放开转基因作物对自然界极其危险，会给马德拉岛的环境和生态健康带来威胁。因此冒险使用这些生物，无论是在农业中直接使用，还是限于试验，都是得不偿失的。”
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