First, a word of warning. If you donate money to Greenpeace, you might think you’re helping save the whales or the rainforests. But in reality, you may be complicit in a crime against humanity. [Recently] Greenpeace Southeast Asia and several other NGOs managed to stop the cultivation and use of vitamin A-enhanced rice in the Philippines, after the country’s court of appeal ruled in their favour.
In doing so, Greenpeace have blocked a multi-year, international, publicly-funded effort to save the lives and the eyesight of millions of children in some of the world’s poorest countries.
This is a devastating blow to the scientific community in the Philippines, and the humanitarian groups who were hoping Golden Rice could be used to help save the lives of young children across Asia and Africa. It will hamper the progress of Golden Rice everywhere, including in Bangladesh where it is still awaiting government approval, again after years of unnecessary delay. I can’t make a precise estimate, but assuming the chilling effect extends to similar efforts elsewhere in the developing world, the potential effect could be in the order of 100,000 avoidable child deaths per year.
This is almost a trivial point by comparison, but as a lifelong environmentalist it is one that is important to me. Greenpeace’s actions in blocking Golden Rice do not just tarnish its own brand, but bring the whole environmental movement into disrepute.
