- in the pharmaceutical industry (e.g. the production of growth hormones, Factor v m , interleuidns I and II, interferons, vaccines and receptors);

- in agriculture (e.g. plant tissue culturing, and the design and production of genetically modified plants and animals).

"New insights and achievements in the basic life sciences will inevitably promote further progress in the biotechnological production of new species and new products of value", Professor Katchalski-Katzir concluded.

Exhibi t ion and Conference

When this third BIOTECHNICA closed its doors, it had shown a total of 6,671 visitors some 44 percent more exhibits than the previous year. As in previous years, the majority of visitors came from the manufacturing industry (29 percent), public authorities and institutions (29 percent) and from the service sector (23 percent). They

were equally interested in biotechnological hardware (45 percent) and software (55 percent), including research activities and their results.

The German Agricultural Society (DLG) held a conference in association with the BIOTECHNICA Exhibition. In 1987, the conference attracted 500 visitors. These visitors, from science plant production and processing industries, agricultural organisations and farming, took part in the conference on biotechnology in plant production and the processing of by-products; the state of development, prospects and economic viability. This highly successful conference was organised in cooperation with the Union of Agricultural Research Associa~ons (DAb').

Matters were clarified and objections and. fears reduced. On the other hand, exaggerated notions of unlimited possibilities and of an automatic victory of biotechnological methods leading to the wide-spread use of biomass in non-food areas were replaced by more realistic expectations.

Ozone Depletion

Some 250 delegates (excluding the Press) registered for this conference, which was held at the Headquarters of the Royal Institute of British Architects, London, during November, 1988. The range of interests of those attending was very wide and included representatives from consumer groups, pressure groups, industry, retail chains, government, local authorities, academic establishments, research laboratories, hospitals, consultancies and NGOs. Perhaps a quarter or more of the delegates represented international organisations, so the international tag was for once well justified. Undoubtedly, it was the excellent programme of speakers that had attracted so many people from so far away.

The Opening Address was given by Virginia Bottomley, Under- Secretary of State at the Department of the Environment, UK. She defended the Montreal Protocol against those who attacked it as being insufficiently tough (the Protocol aims for a 50 percent cut in CFC consumption by 1999, compared with a 1986 base). The 50 percent cut was the best that could have been achieved at the time, she said. Mrs Bottomley went on to say that the goveazunent now accepted the need to reduce emissions further. "I would stress at least 85 percent, and that by as soon as possible. We think the world should be aiming for a date before the end of the century", she emphasised`

She gave details of a major international conference to be held in London during March, 1989. Called jointly by the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State for the Environment, it will be held in association with UNER It will be a scientific and political conference. "Its purpose is to show that what happens to the ozone layer must be of concern to a/l the countries of the world, and that all must meet the challenge", she said. She went on to inform the conference that the UK government had offered to host the second review conference of the Montreal Protocol planned for 1990, "at which we hope the world-wide reductions we are demanding will be agreed".

As the conference unfolded, it became clear that the organisers had produced a well-balanced portfolio of sessions, chairmen and papers. One, moreover, that could serve as a model for any similar event. Rarely can any set of coherent scientific, commercial, societal, medical and political issues have been so comprehensively addressed. In short, the programme was as follows:

Predicting Ozone Deplet ion:

Beginnings of a Problem. Professor I. Isakson (University of Oslo); Computer Modelling of Ozone Losses. Dr John Pyle (University of Cambridge); Results from Antarctica. Dr Robert Watson (NASA).

69 The Environmentalist

Greenhouse Effect:

Greenhouse Effect. Dr Keith Shine (University of Oxford); Measurement and Prediction of Global Warming. Professor Tom Wigley (University of East Anglia); Vulnerable Ecosystems. Dr Michael Oppenheimer (USA Environmental Defence Fund).

International Controls:

EEC Policy. Stanley Clinton-Davies (European Commission); Montreal Protocol. Dr Peter Usher

UV-induced Carcinogenesis:

Defects in DNA Repair. Dr John Arlett (University of Sussex); Experimental Photocarcinogenesis. Dr J. Van flex Leun (State University of Utrecht); Epidemiology of Melanoma. Professor Mark Elwood (University of Nottingham).

Global Consequences:

Aquatic and Plant Ecosystems. Dr Bob Worrest (Environmental Research Laboratory, Oregon); Consequences for Human Health. Dr Robin Russell Jones (St John's Hospital for D i _ s ~ of the Skin).

Political Aspects:

Alternatives to CFCs. G.E. Tane (ICI); Environmental Imperatives. Jonathan Porritt (Friends of the Earth); Consumer Choice. Rachel Waterhouse (Consumers" Association); Priorities for Research. David Warrilow 03eparlment of the Environment).

The conference even had a hero. This was Joe Farman of the British Antarctic Survey. He it was who had reported in 1985 the existence of the ozone hole at the Antarctic. This had been demonstrated by the painstaking analysis of ground-based data. Further, he showed that the severe depletion of ozone that occurred in 1987 had occurred in a virtually isolated air mass and beyond all reasonable doubt must have been the result of chemic~ destruction. Curiously, the hole shows up well by satellite imaging techniques and had been seen by other scientists - they had refused to believe what they had seen and had written it off as an artefact!

Dr Robin Russell Jones spelt out the hazards to health. He reported that it had been computed that a 50 percent reduction in total column ozone by the year 2050 will, amongst other effects, produce an extra 170,000 deaths from malignant melanoma, and an extra 160 million eases of non-melanoma skin cancer.

Dr Robert Watson, peering into the future, suggested that the ozone hole will not disappear until the atmospheric abundance of chlorine is reduced to the levels of the late 1960s. This would require emissions of

CFCs to be reduced from their current rate by some 85 percent. This figure compared starkly with the present requirements of the Montreal Protocol, but one suddenly re,alised where V'n'ginia Bottomley and the Government may have found their new-formal 85 percent reduction goal

Jonathan Porritt, Director of Friends of the Earth, welcomed the Government's proposals to cut CFCs by 85 percent, but was disappointed that no time-scale had been set. He hoped for an announcement that this would be based on the earliest date which was technically feasible. He a~¢ked the UK Government's approach of favouring voluntary agreement for control of CFCs rather than compulsion. CFCs have not been banned in aerosols in the UK, and it is not even mandatory to label products that contain them. He called for mechanisms to be established to ease the f'mancial burden that developing countries would experience in effeeting the transition to non-CFC substances.

Mrs Rachel Waterhouse, Chairman of the Consumers' Association, told the conference that consumers are deeply concerned about environmental issues and are eager to make their own contribution to the protection of the world in which they live. "Our members rate environmental pollution alongside drugs as one of the serious problems they are most concerned about... Destruction of the ozone layer is potentzlly a danger to life second only to nuclear war. But unlike the nuclear threat, consumers can do something about ozone losses and decisions don't have to be left to politicians", she said.

Conclusion

Not only was the conference well planned and informative, the organisation was excellent. All concerned are to be congmndated. One criticism could be raised. Clearly scienfsts with first-hand research results are in great demand for ozone- centred meetings. A number at this confereaace seemed only to have one highly technical paper which they gave regardless of the audience. I say that to be charitable. Surely, none of those I have in mind actually thought they had tailor-made a paper for this heterogeneous audience?

The conference was sponsored by the Consumers' Association, Friends of the Earth and the European Campaign Against Cancer. The Chairman was Lord Zuckerman, and the Conference Organiser was Dr Robin Russell Jones.

Trevor Harvey, Farnborough College of Technology,

Hants GU14 6SB, UK

Volume 9, Number I (1989) 70