Ministry of the Environment finalizes draft of State Strategy for Biodiversity 2010 The Japanese Ministry of the Environment announced its �g(Draft) State Strategy for Biodiversity 2010�h on 10 December 2009, holding in seven locations including Sapporo. Up until now, the Ministry has formulated three �estrategies,�f this latest strategy to be announced being an amended version of the third strategy for the Tenth Meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity and the Fifth Meeting of the Parties to the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety (COP10/MOP5) to be held in Nagoya later in 2010.

The manner in which the amendment would deal with GM crops was one of the important points receiving attention, but there was no change to the basic substance of the content in this amendment, which simply states that biodiversity protection measures will be taken in accordance with the domestic Cartagena laws and that research and development (on GM crops) will be encouraged. Further, although an addition has been made to the opinion on the issue of ABS (access and benefit-sharing), the largest point of contention in COP10, there is no mention of the issue of liability and redress, the largest point of contention in MOP5, leaving one with the feeling that there are numerous problems with the contents of the �estrategy.�f

The results of the �gAwareness on Food Safety�h survey, conducted regularly by the Food Safety Commission (in July 2009 this time) and completed by food safety monitors were published on 24 November 2009. According to the results, those feeling some anxiety towards GM food were 64.6%, exceeding the percentages feeling anxiety over BSE (61.8%), health foods (61.6%), and food additives (62.5%). Those feeling some anxiety over food from somatic cell cloned livestock were 62.1%. (See also BJ September 2008)

At a working MEXT group meeting held on 10 December 2009, new guidelines approving production of reproductive cells from pluripotent cells, human iPS cells and so on, were finalized. (See BJ December 2009)At the same time, it was decided to revise the human ES cell research guidelines banning the production of reproductive cells from pluripotent cells. The new guidelines, since there is the possibility that reproductive cells may contribute to �gthe elucidation of the causes of infertility and congenital diseases and syndromes, and so on,�h approve the production of reproductive cells provided they are used solely for the purposes of basic research into such areas as the elucidation of genesis and differentiation in humans and the development of new treatments and pharmaceuticals. Concerning possible fertilization of produced reproductive cells, the largest point of contention in discussions in the working group, this would be banned, as in the previously finalized report, indicating that only cell production would be sanctioned. The new guidelines and the revised draft of the human ES cell were available for public comment until 14 January 2010, and MEXT will now make preparations for the implementation of the guidelines from FY2010.

Table 1: GM crops approved for open field cultivation (Type 1 usage) (Biodiversity Impact Assessment Investigative Commission)
Crop	Trait	Application (Developer)	Name	Approval Date*
Maize	Lepidoptera and Coleoptera pest resistance, glyphosate and gluphosinate herbicide tolerance	Syngenta Seeds Ltd.	Bt11 × MIR162 × MIR604 × GA21, OECD UI: SYN-BT011-1 × SYN-IR162-4 × SYN-IR604-5 × MON-00021-9	17 December 2009
Maize	Lepidoptera pest resistance, glyphosate and gluphosinate herbicide tolerance	Syngenta Seeds Ltd.	Bt11 × MIR162 × GA21, OECD UI: SYN-BT011-1 × SYN-IR1624 × MON-00021-9	17 December 2009
Maize	Drought resistance	Monsanto Japan	MON87460, OECD UI: MON-87460-4	17 December 2009
* Technically, approval is granted after public comments have been accepted.

On 25 December 2009, MAFF announced its current state of livestock cloning research up to 30 September 2009. (See BJ September 2009) According to the report, there has been a drop in numbers of both cattle germ line cell and cattle somatic clone pregnancies, and the production of cloned embryos is hardly being carried out at all. It would appear that this is because it has become clear that with the large numbers of stillbirths, abnormalities, and so on, and due to high costs, there is no future for this technology. Further, starting with this report, details of somatic cell cloning of pigs and goats have been published, abnormalities also being conspicuous in these animals. In addition, dividing the number of stillborn, post-natal deaths, deaths from sickness by the number of live births minus the number provided for experiments, the state of which is unknown, we find that 81% of somatic cell cloned cattle and 83% of somatic cell cloned pigs, a large majority, showed abnormal births.

Table 2: State of Livestock Clone Research in Japan (head)
Total No. of births of germ line cell cloned cattle	722
In research facilities, testing	20
Stillborn	74
Post-natal death	35
Death from sickness, etc	104
Death from accidents	20
Provided for experiments	77
Sold, meat production	329
Missing	63
In uterus	5
Total No. of births of somatic cell cloned cattle	575
In research facilities, testing	66
Stillborn	80
Post-natal death	94
Death from sickness, etc	146
Death from accidents	9
Provided for experiments	180
In uterus	6
Total No. of births of somatic cell cloned pig	398
In research facilities, testing	34
Stillborn	88
Post-natal death	40
Death from sickness, etc	119
Death from accidents	16
Provided for experiments	101
In uterus	14
Total No. of births of somatic cell cloned goat	9
In research facilities, testing	2
Stillborn	1
Post-natal death	3
Death from sickness, etc	3
In uterus	0