Pat Mooney (ca)

Pat Mooney is the Executive Director of the ETC Group and has worked for over four decades as part of significant civil society organizations. He is internationally deemed one of the leading experts on the food crisis, the depletion of genetic resources, as well as on the risks and dangers of genetic engineering, nanotechnology, synthetic biology, and geoengineering. Together with Cary Fowler and Hope Shand, Mooney founded the Rural Advancement Foundation (RAFI) in 1984, which was renamed ETC (Action Group on Erosion, Technology and Concentration) in 2001. With the motto "Monitoring power, tracking technology, strenghtening diversity," the small but internationally recognized NGO addresses the dangers of new technology on the environment and on society at agencies in Canada, the USA, and Mexico, as well as their worldwide partners. The focal point of Mooney`s work lies, above all, in the observation and critique of the global regulation of the above mentioned technologies as well as in the hostile activities of transnational corporations, which, together with the support of governmental bodies and international institutions, appraise these technologies as progressive and necessary in order to develop multi-billion dollar industries. For his substantial merits, Pat Mooney was awarded the Alternative Nobel Prize by the Swedish Parliament in 1985. In 1998, he was bestowed the prestigious Peason Peace Medal by the United Nations Association of Canada.