Company Responses to Questionnaire on the Development of Genetically Modified Trees

At the recommendation of The Forests Dialogue’s (TFD) Steering Committee, a first draft of the questionnaire was prepared in advance of a TFD meeting held in Gloucestershire, England in October 2013. To draft the questionnaire, TFD worked with two UK based NGOs (and Gloucestershire meeting hosts), the Forest Peoples Programme and FERN. This initial draft was then distributed to over 50 individuals that had participated in TFD’s prior GMT’s meetings for their comments, additions and revisions. A limited number of comments were received and incorporated into the draft. The revised draft was discussed at the Gloucestershire meeting. The meeting was attended by 15 persons from CSOs, IPOs, Intergovernmental Organisations (IGOs) and the forest products industry. Clarification of questions, suggestions for additional questions for a possible follow up and a discussion on how the companies could reply to the questions formed the basis of the meeting. 

 

The companies represented agreed to respond to all of the questions in a timely fashion. Although more questions were raised during the Gloucestershire meeting, which were seen as crucial for inclusion by some CSOs, it was accepted that the companies would answer the original draft questions first since they had already discussed the questions within their companies. The companies also offered to make their responses publicly available via this TFD publication. The full and complete company responses follow this introductory cover note. No agreement was reached regarding any specific further actions during the meeting.