-----Original Message-----
From: Biotech-Mod3
Sent: 06 July 2002 12:13
To: 'biotech-room3@mailserv.fao.org'
Subject: End of conference on GMOs and Gene Flow

Dear Colleagues,

The last message (number 118), from Keith Redenbaugh, has been posted so Conference 7 of the FAO Biotechnology Forum is now officially closed.

FAO established the Biotechnology Forum with the aim of providing quality balanced information on agricultural biotechnology in developing countries and to make a neutral platform available for people to exchange views and experiences on this subject. Conference 7 has been an active and interesting conference, dealing with an important theme and we hope you also have found it of benefit and interest.

If, in the future, you use the conference information as background for decision-making, refer to it in articles or use it as reference material we would be happy to be informed about it (at biotech-admin@fao.org), for our own information.

Some basic information on participation in the conference: It ran for five weeks, from 31 May to 5 July 2002. A total of 275 people had sunscribed to the conference by the first day and the numbers gradually increased to 382 by the final day of the conference. Of these 382 people, 61 of them (i.e. 16 %) submitted at least one message. 48 of the 118 messages posted (i.e. 41%) came from participants in North America while the others came from Europe (21%), Asia (18%), Africa (12%), Latin America and the Caribbean (4%) and Oceania (4%). People send messages from 25 different countries - the greatest proportion came from the United States (30%), Canada (11%), The Philippines (8%), South Africa (8%) and United Kingdom (8%). A total of 32% of messages were from participants in developing countries and 68% from developed countries. (Note that these figures are only an approximate indicator of the relative contributions of the developing versus developed world and of the different world regions to the conference - people from developing countries may be currently living in developed countries (and vice versa)).

The greatest proportion of messages came from people working in universities (32%), followed by those in research centres (24%), NGOs (17%) and private companies (13%). Note, again, that these results are only an approximation - people may have several roles at any one time (e.g. a participant with a university work address could also be on a governmental advisory board and/or a member of a NGO) and they may change over time.

Finally, to all the 61 individuals who submitted messages, a very special and sincere thanks for devoting your time and effort to sharing your views, insights and experiences with us.

John Ruane, PhD
FAO Working Group on Biotechnology,
Moderator, Conference 7
e-mail: biotech-mod3@fao.org
FAO website http://www.fao.org
Forum website http://www.fao.org/biotech/forum.asp
FAO Biotechnology website http://www.fao.org/biotech/index.asp

p.s. All the messages posted have been placed on the Forum website for future reference, at http://www.fao.org/biotech/logs/c7logs.htm . In addition, to recover the 97 messages from June in a single message (size 198 kb), send an e-mail to mailserv@mailserv.fao.org leaving the subject blank and enter the one-line text message as follows:
send listlog/biotech-room3.jun2002

To receive the 20 messages posted in July in a single e-mail (size 37 kb), do the same but replace "jun" by "jul"