Latest Resources
28 April 2022
The financialisation of malaria in Africa: Burkina Faso, rogue capital & GM /gene drive mosq...
(Veuillez cliquer ici pour lire en français) The African Centre for Biodiversity (ACB) hereby publishes a new research paper, titled, “The Financialisation of malaria: Burkina Faso, Rogue capital & GM/gene drive mosquitoes.” This paper seeks to understand the financialisation of malaria as a vehicle for rogue capital in a context of a weakened state (through […]
29 May 2020
Profiteering from health and ecological crisis in Africa: The Target Malaria project and new risk...
Cliquez ici pour le français The ACB shares this research paper with you, of the wave of ‘Trojan horse’ second-generation genetic engineering strategies targeted at, inter alia, malaria in Africa, at a time when the COVID-19 crisis is fracturing the myth that global health expertise is the domain of North America and Europe. Global health […]
28 May 2020
GM Fungi to kill Mosquitoes: Illegal experiments in Burkina Faso?
(Cliquez ici pour le français) Conducted silently and out of the public eye, a three-year experiment involving a new and potentially unsafe and risky genetically modified (GM) fungus to kill mosquitoes was performed in the village of Soumousso in Burkina Faso in 2019. When the study was published in a US scientific journal in May […]
13 May 2019
Gene drive organisms: What Africa should know about actors, motives and threats to biodiversity a...
The African Centre for Biodiversity (ACB) has produced a briefing paper in regard to a new and controversial genetic engineering (GE) technology to produce gene drive organisms (GDOs). These GDOs have been specifically designed to spread an engineered, ‘modified’ genetic trait such as sterility, with the potential to eradicate entire wildlife populations and even species. […]
9 November 2018
Release of risky GM mosquitoes in Burkina Faso highly unethical
Press Release issued by African Centre for Biodiversity, Third World Network and GeneWatch UK Johannesburg, 9 November 2018 Release of risky GM mosquitoes in Burkina Faso highly unethical Risky genetically modified (GM) “male-sterile” mosquitoes are due to be released in the very near future, in Burkina Faso by the Target Malaria research consortium. However, Target […]
20 June 2018
What Does Synthetic Biology Mean for Africa? – An Africa Regional Briefing publication prod...
Huge technical advances in molecular biology and big data biology are leading us towards a ‘forth industrial revolution’ with the ongoing development of novel genetic engineering techniques being reviewed by the UN Conventions for Biological Diversity, under the term ‘synthetic biology’. Such techniques are widening the scope and extent to which organisms can be modified, […]
9 February 2018
Press Release: No benefit to imminent release of risky GM mosquitoes in Burkina Faso
Genetically modified (GM) “male-sterile” mosquitoes are due to be released in Burkina Faso this year by the Target Malaria research consortium. However, Target Malaria acknowledges that there are no benefits to the proposed GM mosquito release. The project is set to apply for a permit to make an open release of 10,000 GM Anopheles gambiae […]
8 February 2018
Briefing Paper: GM Mosquitoes in Burkina Faso
In this briefing paper ACB, TWN and GeneWatch UK discuss that genetically modified (GM) mosquitoes were exported from Imperial College in London to Burkina Faso in November 2016. They are currently in “contained use” facilities in Bobo-Dioulasso, and are being used in experiments by a research consortium called Target Malaria. However, these GM mosquitoes are […]
11 June 2015
Cottoning onto the lie: GM cotton will harm not help small farmers in Africa
After five seasons of genetically modified (GM) cotton cultivation in Burkina Faso farmers are denouncing their contracts with Monsanto and cotton stakeholders are discussing compensation for losses incurred since 2008 due to low yields and low quality fibre. Many other African governments are poised to follow suit but should note how GM cotton has impoverished […]
25 February 2013
GM Industry Called to Account: ISAAA’s report mischievous and erroneous
The Africa Centre for Biosafety (ACB) has dismissed the findings of the biotechnology industry’s flagship annual report, published by the GM industry funded ‘NGO’, the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications (ISAAA), as mischievous and erroneous. According to the report, South Africa’s GM crop area increased by a record 26% or 600,000 hectares […]