Wild Greens' spokesperson Nandor Tanczos says people not only have the right and power to take direct action, they also have the responsibility.
At 1am Thursday morning twelve Wild Green activists walked into the Crop and Food's research facility at Lincoln and uprooted genetically engineered potatoes being field tested for commercial viability.
"The purpose of the action was to call for a moratorium on the growing of genetically engineered foods until such time as their long term safety is assured, and a Royal Commission into genetic engineering is set up. A Royal Commission would give the public the opportunity to discuss the ethical, scientific and safety issues surrounding genetic engineering.,' Mr Tanczos says.
Thursday's action against Crop and Food was well planned says Mr Tanczos, and something they had been talking about for a long time. "We are not vandals randomly destroying crops," he said.
"We didn't do it to be elite commandos. People have both the power and the right to such protest. Governments have tried to remove people's power but it is within people's rights to take back that power. There is a venerable tradition of non violent protest in New Zealand, from Te Whiti o Rongomai to the anti-nuclear protests of the 70s and 80s," he says.
He says they are serious about ending genetic engineering experimentation until the safety issues of the technology are addressed and the general population has decided it is safe.
The Wild Greens are a semi-autonomous branch of the Green Party which was formed about two years ago. They were formed in response to the frustration that some of the younger Greens felt - that all the party seemed to do was talk.
The WildGreens have run into controversy before, when they were featured on the Holmes show testing ecstasy tablets for dangerous adulterants at dance parties. The Wild Greens imported a testing kit from the Green Party in Britain, known as the marquis reagent test, which is used to test a small portion of an ecstasy tab.
Depending on changes in colour the main ingredient can be ascertained. Mr Tanczos says only once have they tested a tab and found that its main ingredient was MDMA (ecstasy), with a lot being MDEA (very similar to MDMA). A sizable proportion consisted mostly of speed and he suspects they occasionally contained horse tranquilliser, though the process doesn't test for this.
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