The 11th Meeting of the Conference of the Contracting Parties to the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands (COP11) was held in the Romanian capital of Bucharest in early July. Having adopted a resolution to include wet rice fields in wetlands to be protected under the Convention at COP10, held in South Korea in 2008, a resolution was submitted at COP11 to grestrict the use of insecticides in wet rice fields.h The resolution indicated that it was aimed at the introduction of GM rice in place of insecticides, and thus sparked off a debate on the pros and cons of GM rice. In the text of the resolution adopted on 13th July, the wording opening the way for the introduction of GM rice had been removed, simply leaving the restriction on the use of pesticides in place. (Consumers Union of Japan 2012/07/25)