Campers' loo habits 'a threat'

2006-01-17 21:36

Cape Town - Foreigners who visit campsites in South Africa and defecate in adjacent open spaces may pose a genetic threat to the environment, according to a submission received by parliament's agriculture and land affairs portfolio committee on Tuesday.

The committee is conducting public hearings in the next two days on the Genetically Modified Organisms Amendment Bill, which aims to promote greater care in the development, production and use of GMOs than is required under existing legislation.

The unusual written submission, one of 33 received, suggests that food eaten before travelling internationally might prove environmentally hazardous to the country visited.

"A person who has consumed a genetically modified product with seeds might eat the product in Europe and move to South Africa for camping within hours.

"On their arrival at the camping site... they find an open space and relieve themselves, secreting (sic) a product that consists of genetic modified seeds... which were not properly digested through the human digestive system.

"By so doing, leaving the camping environment with seeds that have a potential to alter the original generic (sic) nature or state of that environment."

The submission says the amendment bill under consideration does not cater for this type of "genetic transfer", and calls on the committee to plug the loophole.

- SAPA