Journalists in Africa have been charged to reject the campaign, suspected to be promoted by the West, to introduce gene drives into the continent’s ecosystem.
This charge was given at the Journalism Training on Reporting Gene Drives, organised by Renevlyn Development Initiative (RDI), at the weekend, with select journalists from major news outlets in the country.
The Zoom Training, which was coordinated by the Executive Director of RDI, Philip Jakpor, environmental reporter and publisher, Michael Simire of EnviroNews, Barbara Pilz of Save Our Seeds, Diego Bárcena Menendez and other experts in attendance.
Journalists in Nigeria were encouraged to equip themselves intellectually to be able to report the gene drives push of research organisations that target Africa and its people as guinea pigs.
Opening the event, Jakpor said in conceiving the training, RDI realised that the media is key not only in keeping the public informed but also in exposing and interrogating initiatives that are extraneous to Africans and African culture, as part of its watchdog role.
According to him, the organisation is not averse to technology or innovation, as long as they are rooted in facts, promote African culture, indigenous and protect the people from manipulation in all forms. He added that “there is a new form of colonialism that targets altering food, food systems and nature as a whole.”
The Guardian learnt that gene drives are already being experimented in Uganda, Ghana and Burkina Faso, where, in 2019, sterilised mosquitoes were released. He alerted that Nigeria, with its huge population of more than 230 million people, is a potential testing ground for gene drives.
In his presentation on Communicating the Jargon of Science, Simire explained that science journalism covers subjects such as biotechnology, climatology, meteorology, global warming and the environment, extending to health, drugs, chemicals, agriculture, space and oil exploration.
He advised journalists to use simple language and largely avoid the technical terms, so as not to put the readers off.
In his presentation on Gene Drives, Menendez, an ecological farmer and former molecular scientist, introduced the participants to the world of CRISPR, a family of DNA sequences found in the genomes that are used to detect and destroy DNA from similar bacteriophages during subsequent infections.
He revealed, however, that the gene drive might lead to unintended consequences and that this possibility has continued to dog experiments on sterilizing mosquitoes or inserting genes that can make them susceptible to insecticide, which are being carried out in Africa.
Taking up the discussion from there, in her presentation on Behind the scenes of gene drives, Pilz said the political issues around gene drives were discussed mainly at the UN Convention on Biodiversity (CBD) and International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) in addition to some national governments.
Barbara Ntambirweki of the AfriTAP/ETC Group, in her presentation on Africa’s Concerns about gene drives, argued that although regulations were yet to be put in place globally, the most advanced projects were aimed at malaria interventions, with some African countries in Ghana, Burkina Faso, Tanzania and Uganda.
According to her, Nigeria, which has the highest malaria rate globally, may be a potential target for the experiments on the continent; hence, the media should spotlight the ethical questions that the research organisations would prefer to hide.
