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"DAEGU PROTOCOL"
LETTER FROM PROFESSOR TOM MILLER
Open Letter to
Entomological Society of America
Royal Entomological Society (UK)
Entomological Society of Korea
Dear Colleagues,
As many of you know, several groups have been developing new pest and disease control approaches involving genetic engineering biotechnology. One uses transgenic pink bollworm (Pectinophora gossypiella) with conditional lethal genes to supplement the radiation-based Sterile Insect Technique for population eradication. The other is symbiotic control using symbionts to displace pathogens to protect plants from disease. The latter approach is now being pursued by several groups for specific diseases including Citrus Variegated Chlorosis in Brazil, Rice Stripe Virus in Korea, Grape Yellows in Europe and Pierce’s disease here in California. There is also some interest in using this approach to protect sugar cane in Australia (Fiji disease) and Thailand.
The transgenic pink bollworm and paratransgenic sharpshooter (transgenic symbionts carried by glassy-winged sharpshooter, Homalodisca vitripennis) pest control approaches both encountered regulatory road-blocks or obstacles related more to the precautionary principle than to actual risk-based scientific principles or experience. Usually the objections take the form of requests for risk assessment studies that appear to go on forever, like trying to prove a negative.
The projects mentioned above involve minor markets. The pink bollworm project, for example, only affects the North American cotton industries in far western Texas and southern New Mexico, all of Arizona, two counties in southeastern California and the northern two states of Mexico, Sonora and Chihuahua.
Symbiotic control of the strain of Xylella fastidiosa causing Pierce’s disease in southern California may be unsuitable for application elsewhere because the candidate symbiont was isolated from the local disease cycle and may only be compatible with local conditions. It is after all a biologically-based control method.
Funding for projects that involve local markets is always difficult to obtain unless there is significant and continuing economic threat or damage involved. It is appropriate to note that the development of transgenic and paratransgenic insect technologies is generally lacking industrial support as has been the case with other aspects of agricultural biotechnology, such as insect- and herbicide- tolerant crop plants . This further hampers the evolution of an appropriate regulatory structure and the consequent risk assessment process, particularly when University or Government researchers attempt to satisfy regulatory concerns without the necessary financial and staff support typical of established ag-biotech companies.
As seen recently in Africa and Europe, threats of trade embargoes are a weapon used by governments and other advocates against the use of transgenic corn for cattle feed or human consumption, again based primarily on the precautionary principle. We don’t wish to add to this debate, but merely acknowledge that it is happening.
Partly in response to the regulatory log-jam over biotechnology, we developed the “Daegu Protocol,” which is a guide to provide and establish an acceptable regulatory pathway for developing newer technologies for pest and disease problems that have no satisfactory solution to the regulatory problem. The Daegu Protocol was developed at an international conference (International Congress of Insect Biotechnology and Industry, Daegu, Korea, 19-24 August 2007), for the purpose of refocusing attention on the pest and disease problems where they belong.
The first use of Daegu Protocol is planned in connection with developing biotechnology tools for control of desert locust, Schistocerca gregaria, in North Africa. This problem and this venue were not selected by design. Instead, the initiative is in response to an expressed need from colleagues in Morocco.
A meeting is planned for 1-4 July 2008 in Rabat, Morocco to address the question, “can biotechnology provide new tools for locust control?” Talks be characterize the locust problem, discuss some current biotechnology applications ongoing and then foster interactions between non-locust scientists and the numerous field workers from North Africa who would be crucial to provide field testing sites and logistics for future applications.
This letter is not a call for papers to be presented at the meeting. The format of the meeting is tight due to the size of the meeting facilities and the very specific agenda and purpose. We are not meeting to discuss or study something; we intend to put in place the connections and people to develop technology that can be applied to help solve this problem.
Although the logistics for this meeting are not compatible with large attendance (simultaneous translation in English and French is required), we do hope to make the results available to entomologists everywhere and we plan to put this issue on agendas of international entomology meetings into the future; that would include the European Congress of Entomology in 2010 in Budapest, Hungary; the International Congress of Entomology for 2012 at a site to be selected at the Durban, South Africa Congress next July, 2008. And the succeeding International Congress of Insect Biotechnology and Industry that may be held in Thailand during a year that does not conflict with the other meetings mentioned.
For further information, contact a member of the Locust Committee. See: http://biopesticide.ucr.edu.
Thomas A. Miller, UC Riverside
Chris A. Wozniak, USDA-CSREES
Robert I. Rose, USDA-APHIS, emeritus
NEW! - A book purchase scheme for fellows and members in developing countries
The vast majority of the world's insects are still undescribed. Valuable basic work on their native insect faunas can be done by entomologists in developing countries with very limited resources, but they need easier access to basic information about the insect groups they wish to study. Taxonomic work done without such information tends to be poor and generate many problems of misclassification and synonymy. A major problem is that specialist taxonomic works, e.g.. regional or world revisions of insect families, are essential tools for anyone wishing to undertake serious study of such groups, yet are mostly published commercially, and low print runs of highly specialised publications mean high prices. These prices are out of reach of most entomologists in developing countries. Authors of such publications regularly receive e-mails begging copies, but usually have to disappoint as they do not have free supplies to distribute. What is more, libraries of institutions in such countries have little or no money and are unlikely to buy expensive specialist books that will only be used by one person. The internet has revolutionised access to scientific information - anyone with computer access can in a few minutes find and print out information about literally any biological subject, however obscure, and the possibilities increase daily. However, as yet only a few specialist insect taxonomic works covering very few insect groups are available on the internet. The Society has therefore introduced a scheme whereby Fellows and Members in developing countries can apply for assistance with the purchase of specialist entomological texts that cover the regions and groups of insects which they are studying. Applications should relate to particular specified texts and will only be considered from those who can demonstrate that they needed that particular text for the work they are doing. The applicant is asked to provide the name and e-mail address of a specialist on the insect group in question who can verify that the applicant is engaged in specialist work on that group. Any one applicant is limited to spending of a maximum of £200 in any 3-year period. The Society will purchase and send the book(s) to the successful applicant. If the maximum is exceeded then the applicant may pay the additional amount to make up the cost of the book(s).
Patron's Jubilee gift
Butterfly.
Towards the end of 2002, the Registrar suggested to Officers that it would be appropriate to mark the Golden Jubilee year of our Patron with a celebratory gift. I responded by proposing a new painting of a relevant entomological subject, and the Officers and Council concurred with this. Deciding on an appropriate subject was not easy and several suggestions were considered but rejected on grounds of aesthetic unsuitability, lack of specimens or tenuous relevance. As reported under 'Council Matters - March' in the last issue of Antenna (July), the Officers eventually proposed to commission a watercolour portrait of the Large Blue butterfly Maculinea arion L. from Mr Brian Hargreaves, a distinguished natural-history artist who had previously illustrated our Fellows' Obligation Book when Her Majesty visited the Society's rooms some 20 years ago on the centenary of our Royal Charter.
The excellent illustration of the Large Blue by Brian Hargreaves is reproduced on the cover of this issue of Antenna. Dr Jeremy Thomas provided the following summary of the story of the Large Blue in the UK, which was appended to the back of the painting and serves as an explanation of why the Society chose it to celebrate our Patron's Jubilee.
"The Large Blue butterfly Maculinea arion is famed for its beauty, its excessive rarity, and for an extraordinary lifestyle that involves feeding briefly as a caterpillar on the flowers of wild thyme before being carried underground into the nests of red Myrmica ants, where it feeds for 11 months on ant grubs. After two centuries of decline, British Large Blue colonies were reduced by the 1950s to a few West Country sites, the last disappearing in 1979. Habitat destruction accounted for some losses, but early conservation efforts were chiefly hampered by inadequate knowledge of the butterfly's exact ecological requirements. Detailed research by a RES Fellow eventually revealed that the butterfly depended on one rather uncommon species of red ant, which in turn required an unusual regime of grazing management to become sufficiently abundant to support the butterfly. With this information, a consortium of conservation organizations, supported by the RES, was able to restore suitable conditions to seven carefully-managed former sites, to which a near-identical Swedish race of Large Blue was introduced in 1983-90. Today, this butterfly flies in abundance on the finest of these British sites, representing some of the largest populations known of this globally endangered species."
The Registrar informed the Queen's Private Secretary of the gift in May and delivered it by hand to the Chief Clerk in the Private Secretary's Office at Buckingham Palace on 23 June. The Chief Clerk subsequently wrote to the Registrar and informed him that: "Her Majesty was delighted with your choice of the Large Blue butterfly and much appreciates the workmanship involved in such a piece. The Queen has asked that her warm thanks be conveyed to you and your members for your thoughtfulness and to Brian Hargreaves for undertaking this project."
The above is an artical submitted by Professor Chris Haines to Antenna and published in the October 2003 Volume(4)
Greeting cards
The watercolour portrait of the Large Blue butterfly Maculinea arion L. by Mr Brian Hargreaves presented to our Patron H.M The Queen to mark her Jubilee Year has now been produced as a 7 x 5ins greetings card, with the wording inside "With Best Wishes" which are now on sale from the Royal Entomological Society, The Mansion House, Chiswell Green Lane, St Albans, Herts, AL2 3NS, email: bill@royensoc.co.uk price £3.50 per pack of ten. Please contact us for more info.