The Sustainability Council is appealing against a decision by the Environmental Protection Authority that it says will allow genetically engineered plants to be grown with no regulatory approval.
The New Zealand Forest Research Institute applied to the EPA last year asking it to determine whether organisms created using a new technique, that uses enzymes to alter the action of DNA, would be considered genetically modified and have to be regulated under New Zealand law.
The EPA ruled in March that the technique does not genetically modify organisms which means it could go ahead.
But the Sustainability Council says the technique is so new that many countries have not yet ruled whether it is GM, and New Zealand should not rush into it.
