Safety Assessment of Transgenic Organisms in the Environment, Volume 10
OECD Consensus Document on Environmental Considerations for the Release of Transgenic
Plants
Volume 10 of the Series contains the consensus document on the “Environmental Considerations
for Risk/Safety Assessment for the Release of Transgenic Plants” developed by the
OECD Working Party on the Harmonisation of Regulatory Oversight in Biotechnology.
Transgenic plant varieties are subject to official risk/safety assessment, science-based
and case-by-case, before their potential release into the environment. The document
contains general information on environmental risk/safety assessment, its key concepts,
structure and planning. Annexes describe seven examples of environmental considerations
routinely examined by assessors and taken from experience gained during such assessment:
Invasiveness and weediness; Vertical gene flow; Organisms (animals); Soil functions;
Plant health; Crop management practices; and Biodiversity (protected species and habitats/ecosystems).
The purpose of this document is not to elaborate new terminology or to describe how
to undertake an actual risk/safety assessment, but rather to outline an approach and
provide illustrative examples for helping assessors in planning and structuring an
environmental risk/safety assessment. This document should be of interest to regulators
and safety assessors, as well as to plant breeders and the wider scientific community.
More information, including other tools for environmental risk/safety assessment such
as OECD consensus documents on the biology of crop species, are found at BioTrack
Online.
Available from July 27, 2023
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