The National Council of Protected Areas (CONAP) is promoting a bill in the Guatemalan Congress to regulate the influx into the country and the use of genetically modified organisms (GMOs). These transgenics ''could be beneficial for the country, but could also have negative impacts, which is why it is essential to regulate their entry and use,'' CONAP leader Ana Luisa Noguera told Tierramérica.

The bill was handed to President Oscar Berger on July 16 and he is to send it to Congress, she said.

If the bill passes, it would ban GMOs in areas where there are endangered species, improve controls along Guatemala's borders and make certain transgenic-related activities a crime, said Noguera.

Imports of GMOs were banned in 1986, but Yuri Melini, director of the Legal, Environmental and Social Action Center, said that transgenic tomatoes have been cultivated in the northern department of Baja Verapaz for years.