Genetically Engineered Trees

Since 1999 GENET collects and distributes information on various topics in the field of genetic engineering in agriculture, food production and health. With this "Special Topic: GE Trees" GENET aims at providing an overview about the worldwide debate on genetically engineered trees, mainly based on our archives. We provide you with a selection of those GENET-news articles in our databank that show the word "trees" in the title of the text. You will find a selection of publications in the section "Research & Reports". To get more information about the different stakeholders in the debate, please follow the internet links to selected actors in the civil society and industry sectors. Finally, the page "GE Trees and the CBD" introduces you into the international debate about a moratorium on GE trees that is ongoing at the Convention for Biological Biodiversity (to come soon).

GENET-news articles

04.04.2005

Genetically modified trees in Chile: A new forest conflict

El Hacha (The Axe) is a song written by Patricio Manns and performed by Inti Illimani on their release Arriesgaré la piel; its final lines refer to deforestation: »The forest comes before Man, but desert follows him.« Without a doubt, deforestation has seriously affected the balance of forest ecosystems worldwide, making understandable the fear that paralyzes those who are aware of this issue; fear that is expressed in different ways, such as in this song. A second phenomenon negatively affecting the survival of forests is the creation of extensive single- crop forest plantations, and in particular, current concerns about new plantations of genetically modified trees.

04.04.2005

GE trees: No solution to climate change

In December 2003, at the ninth Conference of Parties to the UNFCCC (COP- 9), government representatives agreed the rules under the Kyoto Protocol’s clean development mechanism for tree plantations as carbon sinks. One of the decisions reached at the meeting allows genetically engineered (GE) trees to be used as carbon sinks under the Kyoto’s clean development mechanism. COP-9 »formulated rules for capturing new subsidies for industrial forestry projects that will accelerate global warming, disempower activists trying to tackle it, promote genetically-modified monoculture tree plantations, reduce biodiversity-and violate local people’s rights to land and forests worldwide,« as Larry Lohmann of The Corner House, a UK-based solidarity and research group, put it.(3)

15.03.2005

Now, bioengineered trees are taking root in China

Transgenic poplars could make China a big player in lumber. But some experts worry about effects on nature. Scattered across at least seven provinces in China are more than 1 million common poplar trees with an uncommon bite. They can kill the insects that nibble their leaves. Their unusual defensive system is a genetically engineered bomb: Bacillus thuringiensis, or Bt, a naturally occurring toxin inserted into the tree’s DNA. Other such transgenic species, such as the larch and walnut, are in the works, Chinese researchers report.

15.03.2005

Campaign demands USDA halt field releases of GE trees

Following a national strategy meeting to address the problem of genetic engineering of trees, the Stop GE Trees Campaign reaffirmed its commitment to calling for a ban on the release of GE trees into the environment including the removal of all field releases of genetically engineered forest plants. The Stop GE Trees Campaign is an alliance of grassroots organizations and leading environmental groups in the US and Canada committed to ending the genetic engineering of trees.

02.03.2005

Terminator trees

Transgenic or genetically modified (GM) trees have been tested extensively in large open plots with little concern over the spread of transgenes. Studies on the dispersal of pollen and seeds from forest trees have shown that gene-flow can be measured in kilometres. It is clear that the transgenes from GM trees cannot be contained once released into the environment. For that reason, a great deal of effort has been devoted to developing genetic modifications - commonly referred to as terminator techniques - that prevent flowering or pollen production.

09.02.2005

Better trees from GM technology?

At an abandoned hat factory in Danbury, Conn, scientists are testing genetically engineered trees to see if they can be used to remove toxic mercury from the ground. In a laboratory in Raleigh, N.C., another group is working to modify trees to make paper production less polluting and more energy efficient. At Purdue University in West Lafayette, Ind., still more scientists are working on ways to engineer trees so they can store more carbon in their roots as a way of fighting global warming.

12.01.2005

GM trees are on their way

The black cottonwood was given the honour of being first tree because it and its relatives are fast-growing and therefore important in forestry. For some people, though, they do not grow fast enough. As America’s Department of Energy, which sponsored and led the cottonwood genome project, puts it, the objective of the research was to provide insights that will lead to »faster growing trees, trees that produce more biomass for conversion to fuels, while also sequestering carbon from the atmosphere.« It might also lead to trees with »phytoremediation traits that can be used to clean up hazardous waste sites.«

16.12.2004

Environmental and social justice groups condemn pro-GMO tree decision of UNFCCC

World Rainforest Movement (Uruguay), Friends of the Earth International, Global Justice Ecology Project (USA), [Lorena Ojeda,] a Mapuche scientist from Chile and the Union of Ecoforestry (Finland) gave a presentation yesterday at the Salon del Jardin Botanico in Buenos Aires, Argentina where they condemned the 12/03 decision of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change to allow use of genetically engineered (GMO) trees in carbon offset forestry projects developed to supposedly mitigate global warming emissions.

15.12.2004

GM trees a false option

In the beginning of this year three environmental organisations launched the Internet action for protesting the GM trees supportive decision made in UN Kyoto meeting in Milano, last December. Today there is about 300 ngos and almost 3000 individuals supporting the demand. The basic idea to reward with emission rights those western countries which would be putting up tree plantations in third world is simply false, even without GM trees, says campaigner Hannu Hyvönen by the Union of Ecoforestry in Finland.

02.12.2004

The impact of test-tube trees on the woods

After one of his famous walks, the bearded naturalist John Muir wrote in 1896, »Few are altogether deaf to the preaching of pine trees.« But if today’s trees could tell their stories, some American branches would be whispering new tales of origin: epics of genetic engineering in 150 groves from Puget Sound to the palmetto flats of South Carolina. Scientists are increasingly tweaking the genetics of trees in the laboratory to enable them to do such things as live at higher altitudes, produce more fruit, convert more easily into pulp for paper products, and grow faster for timber harvesting.

19.11.2004

GE tree genes on horizon

Science is poised to insert foreign genes into conifers and other trees harvested for cash. Opposition already is stirring. The prospect raises ecological and cultural issues unlike any encountered before. But the promise is big, too, said Claire Williams, a geneticist and visiting professor at Duke University. Designer trees may grow faster and yield products cheaper. That could preserve existing forests while the world’s appetite for wood and paper keeps growing.
Supporters and skeptics, she said, need to talk. »We have a narrow window for constructive dialogue. In five or 10 years it will be too late,« Williams said.

18.11.2004

Row over GM papaya to surface at IUCN Third World Conservation Congress

A group of Big Island farmers opposed to genetically engineered plants dumped more than 20 papaya fruit into a trash bin on the University of Hawai’i-Hilo campus yesterday in a symbolic protest of what they say is »contamination« of their trees by plants created by UH scientists. The group, which leaders say includes as many as 100 small farmers, including conventional, backyard and organic farmers on three islands, is calling on UH to create a plan to prevent cross-pollination of their papaya trees as well as offering liability protection for growers if their markets are lost.

18.11.2004

How UH helped save Hawai’i’s papayas

For generations, the papaya ringspot virus, or PRSV, threatened the livelihood of Hawai’i’s papaya farmers. It was discovered on O’ahu in the 1940s and devastated papaya production. By the mid-1980s, more than 90 percent of the state’s papayas were grown in the Big Island’s Puna district. The removal of infected trees in neighboring areas kept Puna virus-free for decades, but time was not on the growers« side. Knowing that Puna’s luck wouldn’t last forever, researchers from UH- Manoa’s College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources, Cornell University, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and private industry began work to develop a papaya genetically engineered to resist the virus.

18.11.2004

Long-term testing is critical in GMO »foods«

It’s outrageous that organic growers have been told to bag each flower on every tree to prevent GMO papaya contamination. UH must supply GMO testing for papaya seeds and trees. Growers deserve to know what they are eating and selling. UH released this invasive species into our environment. UH must take responsibility to clean it up.

18.11.2004

Rainbow papaya saved industry

Rainbow papaya is the reason we’re still in business. Without it, we wouldn’t have trees to grow or fruit to sell. Instead of 350 to 400 papaya farmers in the state, there might be 50. When ringspot virus reached Puna in 1992, 95 percent of the state’s fresh papayas grew there. Whole fields were infected, and growers had to choose between cutting all their trees or letting them stand and hoping for some harvestable fruit. With sick trees left standing, the virus spread quickly.

11.11.2004

Call for global ban on GM trees

China appears to be the first country on Earth which has taken genetically modified trees into commercial use. According to reports there are now more than a million insect resistant GM poplars in plantations in Southern China. There is still a great lack of information as to the varieties in question but activists are worried. »If those GM poplars can cross pollinate with the natural populations the contamination cannot be avoided. In that case China has obviously made LMO (living modified organism) invasion to other countries and by that it will break the national sovereignty of those countries and also international laws like the Cartagena Biosafety Protocol, says Mikko Vartiainen, a lawyer and activist in People’s Biosafety Association in Finland.

08.10.2004

Can GE papayas be good neighbors on Hawai’i (USA)?

Then, last spring, some of Mr. Lahti’s fruit tested positive for genetically modified seeds. »’I was really surprised,’« Mr. Lahti said. »’I didn’t really know what was happening.”
He cut down all 170 of his trees and is now replanting, without any guarantee that the same problem - pollen from modified trees on other farms drifting on the wind to pollinate his trees - won’t happen again. From papayas in Hawaii, to corn in Mexico and canola in Canada, the spread of pollen or seeds from genetically engineered plants is evolving from an abstract scientific worry into a significant practical problem.

20.09.2004

Nobody knows where China’s GE trees are growing

China has planted more than a million genetically modified trees in a bid to halt the spread of deserts and prevent flash floods. But a bureaucratic loophole means that no one knows for sure where all the trees have been planted, or what effect they will have on native forests. In the past five years, 8000 square kilometres of farmland in China has been converted to plantations. State foresters have focused on the headwaters of the Yellow and Yangtze rivers and Xinjiang province in the arid north-west, where the first field tests for GM trees were carried out in the late 1990s.

16.09.2004

Hawai'i critics say engineered papayas are a threat

Pollen from genetically engineered papayas has contaminated at least some ordinary papaya plants in Hawaii, say advocates for controls on genetically modified organisms. Evidence of such »genetic drift« with papaya was recently confirmed with testing of Hawaii papaya samples at a mainland lab, representatives of Hawaii Genetic Engineering Action Network and GMO-Free Hawaii said Thursday. Proponents of the genetically engineered Rainbow and SunUp papayas agreed that pollen can spread to nonengineered trees, but said they would need to know more about testing methodologies before agreeing there is a problem.

16.09.2004

GE contamination in papaya seeds confirmed by Thai government

An agricultural research station yesterday destroyed 1,000 suspected genetically modified (GM) papaya trees in Muang district. »Ten years of research aimed at improving disease resistance in papayas was destroyed, along with the experimental crops,« said research station chief Wilai Prasartsri. Wilai said the research setback was unjustified and was essnetially based on an unfounded fear of GM crops.

10.09.2004

GE trees in China: Genetically modified madness

Two years ago, China’s State Forestry Administration approved genetically modified (GM) poplar trees for commercial planting. Well over one million insect resistant GM poplars have now been planted in China. Also two years ago, China launched the world’s largest tree planting project. By 2012 the government aims to have covered an area of 44 million hectares with trees.

12.08.2004

Oji Paper grafts natural eucalyptus on GE eucalyptus roots

Oji Paper Co. has successfully grafted natural eucalyptus onto genetically modified eucalyptus to create trees that grow well in acidic soils without worry that genetically altered seeds will spread in the environment. The graft has the root system of a eucalyptus tree genetically modified to absorb nutrients in acidic soils, where eucalyptus normally does not thrive. The rest of the graft from the trunk up is derived from a natural eucalyptus tree.

09.08.2004

Turning GE trees into toxic avengers

Dr. Richard Meagher, a professor of genetics at the University of Georgia, genetically engineered the trees to extract mercury from the soil, store it without being harmed, convert it to a less toxic form of mercury and release it into the air. It was one of two dozen proposals Dr. Meagher has submitted to various agencies over two decades for engineering trees to soak up chemicals from contaminated soil. For years, no one would pay him to try. »I got called a charlatan,« he said. »People didn’t believe a plant could do this.« He will begin to assess the experiment’s success this fall. But his is not the only such experiment with trees.

20.05.2004

UN Forest Forum urged to ban GE trees

Global Justice Ecology Project and the Stop GE Trees Campaign, both based in the U.S., are working with organizations including The Corner House of the UK, The Union of Ecoforestry from Finland, and World Rainforest Movement of Uruguay, to pressure the United Nations to oppose the use of genetically engineered trees in carbon offset forestry plantations developed under the Kyoto Protocol, and to ban their commercial development. On 11 May petitions signed by renowned scientists such as Dr. David Suzuki, more than 160 organizations including The Sierra Club, and Friends of the Earth International as well as over 1,500 individuals will be presented to the U.N. in Geneva backing these demands.

13.05.2004

Call for »second-generation« GM crops

THERE is a desperate need for the creation of »second-generation« bio-technology products to demonstrate real consumer advantages, says [Sean Rickard of Cranfield University ...] He cited the case of gene transfer in elm trees which prevented damage from Dutch Elm disease. »If we can produce a loaf of bread from GM wheat that helps prevent bone deterioration in later life, consumers will then be able to see the advantages.

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GE Trees: NGOs and Social Movements

 people's Forest Forum

The Global Ban on GM Trees Campaign was released by three Finnish non-governemental organisations in January 2004. The open petition protested decicion made in UN Climate change meeting in Milano to include transgenic trees in their climate toolbox. This desicion violated the biodiversity and biosafety agreements and prozesses.

 Stop GE Trees Campaign

The Stop GE Trees Campaign is a national and international alliance of organizations that have united toward the goal of prohibiting the ecologically and socially devastating release of genetically engineered trees into the environment. Global Justice Ecology Project coordinates, administrates and fundraises for the campaign. World Rainforest Movement, based in Uruguay, is the Southern Hub for the Campaign and has materials in Spanish and Portuguese.

 Genetically Modified Trees

Information by the World Rainforest Movement

GE Trees: Biotechnology Industry and Science

 Institute for Forest Biotechnology

The Institute promotes the responsible use of biotechnology in forest trees.  We advance the societal, environmental, and economic benefits biotechnology can bring to forests around the world.  The Institute of Forest Biotechnology (IFB) is the only non-profit organization to address the sustainability of forest biotechnology on a global scale.

 ArgorGen

Trees are the world’s most plentiful and versatile source of renewable materials and an important resource for bioenergy. ArborGen is dedicated to improving the sustainability and productivity of purpose grown working forests, providing more wood on less land while preserving native habitats in all their diversity and complexity for future generations.

 Tree Biosafety and Genomics Research Cooperative

The goal of the Tree Biosafety and Genomics Research Cooperative (TBGRC) is to conduct research, technology transfer, and education to facilitate beneficial uses of genetically engineered trees in plantations. The TBGRC seeks to test and develop select innovations, based on progress in molecular biology and agricultural biotechnology, that will ultimately have commercial value to wood-growing and horticultural industries. Research is presently focused on poplars as scientific models for genetic engineering and functional genomic studies.