Sub-group on wider issues raised by the farm-scale evaluations of GMHT crops

Membership

Members of the ACRE Sub-group on Wider Issues Raised by the Farm Scale Evaluations of GMHT Crops

Professor Jules Pretty (Chair of subgroup) - University of Essex
Professor Jeffrey Bale - University of Birmingham
Professor Philip Dale - John Innes Centre *
Dr Philip Hulme - Centre for Ecology & Hydrology
Professor David Macdonald - University of Oxford *
Mr Jim Orson – The Arable Group
Professor Christopher Pollock - Institute of Grassland & Environmental Research
Professor Mark Rees - University of Sheffield

Secretariat

Dr Kathryn Morley (from April 2006)
Dr Tanja Schuler (from Sept 2004)
Dr Steven Hill (until Sept 2004)

*The membership of the ACRE Sub-group on wider issues raised by the farm-scale evaluations of GMHT crops included two members who were not on ACRE. Their expertise and interests are shown below.

Professor David W. Macdonald, DSc

Oxford University.
Expertise: Biological conservation and behavioural ecology. Professor Macdonald is founder Director of Oxford University's Wildlife Conservation Research Unit and Professor of Wildlife Conservation at Oxford (where he is a Fellow of Lady Margaret Hall). In 2004 he was appointed Visiting Professor, Imperial College, London, and between 1997-2004 he was A. D. White Professor-at-Large, University of Cornell. He is expert in wildlife conservation, with a background in animal ecology and behaviour and considerable experience in farming and wildlife. He was winner of the 2005 Dawkins Prize for Conservation, and was awarded the Zoological Society of London's Thomas Huxley Award in 1978. He is Chairman of the Darwin Advisory Committee (Defra), a Council member of English Nature (and a member of the Board of Natural England), a Trustee of the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust, and was until recently a member of Defra's Advisory Committee for Pesticides (and associated Environmental Panel) (which proposed his membership of this ACRE sub-group). He is a Vice President of the Wildlife Trusts, and a former Vice President of the Zoological Society of London and of the RSPCA; he was for 25 years founder Chairman of the IUCN/SSC Canid Specialist Group, and is now an Emeritus Fellow of the Species Survival Commission (IUCN). David Macdonald, who is a Fellow of the Institute of Biologists, is also known for his books and TV documentaries on wildlife, such as Meerkats United and The Night of the Fox.

Professor Philip J Dale OBE

Emeritus Fellow of the John Innes Centre, Norwich
Expert in plant genetics, genetic modification and the environmental impact assessment of genetically modified crops. Formerly a member of the Advisory Committee on Releases to the Environment (1993-1999), a member of the Advisory Committee on Novel Foods and Processes (1998-2004; Deputy Chair 2002-2004) and a member of the Agriculture and Environment Biotechnology Commission (2000-2004). Awarded an Honorary Professorship from the Department of Biological Sciences, University of East Anglia and an Honorary Professorship in association with the Department of Law, University of Sheffield. Chairman of the BBSRC Steering Committee associated their research programme on Geneflow. Currently Coordinator of biosafety studies in the EU sponsored "Pharma-Planta" programme examining the use of plants for the production of pharmaceutical substances. Chairman of the Public Research and Regulation Initiative to provide a public scientist perspective in the development of international regulations on biotechnology. A member of the European Food Safety Authority GMO Ad Hoc committee responsible for evaluating proposals for the environmental release of GM organisms and their use as food and feed. Awarded an OBE in the 2006 New Years Honours List.