Frankenforests: GE Trees Threaten Ecosystem Collapse
By Dara Colwell
AlterNet.org
Thursday 02 August 2007
Across the US and the world, the timber industry is driving
research behind genetically engineered forests. But environmentalists
worry that it will open an ecological Pandora's Box.
In China, over a million poplar trees have been planted since 2002
to combat deforestation. But the move has not been widely applauded by
everyone. The poplars, which are genetically engineered, are China's
first foray into the world of transgenic forestry - or
"frankenforests" - and other countries are not far behind.
As the biotech industry continues to lay the groundwork for
genetically engineered crops - poorly tested, widely debated and yet
plugged as a technological wonder - a potentially greater threat to
biodiversity has begun to emerge. Pushed forward by biotech and the
multibillion- dollar timber industry, genetically engineered trees are
the latest invention.
"The industry has tried very hard to keep it quiet, or tout the
technology as benign and beneficial to the environment, " says Anne
Petermann, co-founder of the Global Justice Ecology Project, a
nonprofit established to advance global justice through ecological
awareness. "The technology is moving forward very quickly, outpacing
regulations. There are no controls in place to properly address or
assess the risks - which are major."
GE trees are planted in monoculture forests, which look more like
plantations, and pose serious risks to the ecosystem. Trees live
decades or centuries longer than plants, and their seeds can travel
hundreds of miles, increasing the likelihood of gene contamination to
wild species. The technology was created to optimize the manufacturing
process, but environmentalists worry that it will open an ecological
Pandora's Box and threaten the health of the forests we depend on for
survival.
The World Is a Test Lab
GE forestry research is already alarmingly prevalent across the
globe. The United States leads the world in research projects, with
150 tree test plots - two-thirds of the world's known research areas -
and they are joined by Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China,
Finland, France, Germany, Japan, New Zealand, Portugal, Spain, Sweden,
the United Kingdom and the United States.
Despite the prevalence of the practice, GE forestry has remained
somewhat obscured by GE crops, which have raised more immediate health
concerns, as forestry "doesn't seem to affect the daily shopping trip
- or at least, less visibly," according to Larry Lohmann, a researcher
with U.K.-based Corner House, a nonprofit that fights for social and
environmental justice.
"But the problems transgenic trees pose are just as severe.
Whether it's endangering wild species or pollen drift, the fact is
we're in danger of setting off a chain of events that's irreversible.
We don't know what we're messing with," he says.
From the perspective of the timber industry, driven by commercial
pressure and deforestation to "build" its own resources, the case for
GE trees is clear-cut. Uniform, faster-growing species produce more
paper or lumber in a shorter period of time, driving down costs.
Faster-growing trees also produce greater biomass, which can
potentially be converted into a second-generation biofuel - an
important financial incentive in the current gold rush for agrofuels.
Biomass furthermore acts as a carbon sink, sucking carbon dioxide
emissions from the air, which the industry claims is an environmental
plus, though native forests actually absorb more. The industry's
outlook is simple: The technology poses minimal risk with maximum return.
"The industry is looking for a way to make more money, damn the
consequences. What's driving this is not environmental concern, but
mass production - you can't say that's environmentally friendly," says
Lohmann.
Concerns over the technology's long-term impact are serious. "The
forests are already under tremendous pressure from climate change and
human interaction, " says Dr. Ricarda Steinbrecher, co-founder of the
London-based nonprofit science watchdog Eco-Nexus. Steinbrecher, also
co-author of "Hungry Corporations: Transnational Biotech Companies
Colonize the Food Chain," has a Ph.D. in molecular genetics.
"Compared to crops that have been cultivated for thousands of
years, trees are 'wild.' If a GE trait enters a forest species, the
implications could be absolutely horrendous. We could see the
ecological system weaken and collapse. Without the forests, we're sunk."
Steinbrecher' s fears resonate deeply with environmentalists. Given
genetic science's infancy, which has been plagued repeatedly by
controversy, biotech - with its thrust towards profit - has continued
to promote its art as a magic bullet solution. But there's always the
risk of misfire. And now that trees have been loaded into the barrel,
environmentalists, those involved in forestry, indigenous peoples and
scientists have worked to raise the alarm.
"Forests are crucial to us," says Alexander Evans, research
director at the Forest Guild, which promotes responsible forestry in
America, noting how they are one of the most valuable and
little-understood ecosystems in the world. "When it comes to GE, the
potential risks are not well understood, so why go into it? We're not
into the quick-return model - there are too many hidden costs. There's
simply no reason to take the risk."
The risks, in fact, are numerous. Genetically modified trees have
been engineered to exhibit unnatural traits such as herbicide
tolerance, insecticide production, reduced lignin content, the
substance that makes trees strong but must be removed to make paper,
and finally, sterility.
Many of these qualities have already proved problematic. For
example, herbicide-resistant trees are meant to reduce the quantity of
herbicides applied to tree plantations, yet experience shows that
farmers who converted to herbicide-resistant , genetically modified
crops used just as much herbicide as their counterparts, according to
the World Wildlife Fund.
Or take sterility, also known as terminator technology and by far
the most controversial. In GE crops, this strategy was used to prevent
farmers from saving and replanting seeds, thus compelling them to buy
from dealers - a highly lucrative move for the
multinational/ agrochemical seed industry. With trees, however, the
technology is meant to act as a biosafety control to prevent
contamination as trees, large organisms with a long life span, have
enormous potential for gene flow.
So far, engineering persistent sterility has been impossible. But
its success would be worse, creating sterile trees that would produce
no seeds, pollen, fruit or flowers, sources of food for thousands of
species of birds, insects and animals. Instead, sterile trees would
comprise forests akin to silent green desserts, devoid of life.
"From a scientific perspective, we haven't got a clue what the
response (in GE trees) will be. There's real arrogance in saying that
we do," says Steinbrecher. "Genome scrambling isn't like moving Lego
blocks. It's introducing a number of mutations into the plant's DNA,
and the side effects are not something we can predict."
The US Approves GE Trees
Back in the States, however, major transgenic tree projects are in
the works. On July 16, APHIS (Animal Plant Health Inspection Service),
a subsidiary of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, approved a request
by forestry giant ArborGen to let a field of genetically modified
eucalyptus trees flower and produce seeds - a monumental move that has
alarmed environmentalists worried about GE trees interbreeding with
wild ones.
"The USDA has basically been rubber-stamping things without doing
a thorough environmental assessment," says Petermann of the Global
Justice Ecology Project, critical of the USDA's decision to give the
green light to ArboGen, a $60 million venture between International
Paper, the world' largest forest and paper company, and Westvaco,
another huge U.S. multinational forest products company. "Trees live
for decades, so to do a thorough study, you have to study them for
decades," she says.
Not that USDA approval counts for much these days. The pro-GE
department has strong ties to biotech, going so far as to sue other
nations before the World Trade Organization over bans on genetically
engineered crops grown in the United States. Such political cronyism
these days is rampant, leaving the fox guarding the henhouse.
ArboGen has invited serious criticism on several fronts: In its
permit application, the company classified certain genes as
confidential business information, meaning even the USDA could not
assess their impact; its field trial site in Alabama is prone to
severe storms that could blow eucalyptus seeds much farther than the
mere 100 meters the USDA anticipated.
And there's also the choice of trees. Eucalyptus, a fast-growing,
high-yield hardwood, is notorious for colonizing native ecosystems.
The species has become so successful in California, it's now listed as
a plant pest by the state's Invasive Plant Council. The tree
additionally depletes ground water, exacerbating drought conditions,
and is extremely flammable, potentially causing massive wildfires, an
ongoing issue for the American South, where ArboGen is headquartered.
By far, the largest threat ArboGen poses, however, is gene drift.
Trees are perennial plants that can spread seeds and pollen for
hundreds of miles, or even further. According to new research from
Duke University's Center on Global Change, which has studied pollen
from GE conifer trees, the pollen from transgenic pines can spread
more than a thousand miles, leading to "substantial ... subsequent
colonization. "
Gene drift in agricultural crops has already occurred rapidly.
Take, for example, StarLink Maize, a GM variety approved only for
animal feed, which entered the human food chain in the United States,
Canada, Egypt, Bolivia, Nicaragua, Japan and South Korea.
With trees, contamination is more worrying because they are
long-living, complex organisms that are key to the planet's ecosystem.
China's Nanjing Institute of Environmental Science has already
reported contamination of native poplars - what's to stop this from
spreading elsewhere?
"There's no way to experiment safely in the open with this
technology. Companies say it's very safe and that they have testing
protocols, but it's an illusion to think, once contamination starts
happening, that it's somehow going to be regulated," says Lohmann.
"That depends on the assumption that you know what could go wrong."
Steinbrecher, too, finds the promise of halting GE contamination
and thus interbreeding with wild trees a "scientifically meaningless
argument that's unsatisfactory and unconvincing. "
"You cannot design a biological system that's 100 percent
fool-proof," she says. Data backs her up. According to the Food and
Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), even at a 95
percent success rate, it is nearly impossible to control gene flow
through pollen and seed dispersal.
"Contamination is inevitable and irreversible, " says Petermann.
"Regulations need to be put in place now to properly address and
assess the risk from these trees because the industry is getting them
out there without public debate. Once it's too late, it really is too
late."
Industry's Spin
To pacify these concerns, projects such as the European
Union-funded Transcontainer scheme have been created. A three-year,
5.38 million Euro research project, Transcontainer is aimed at
developing technology to allow the coexistence of GE and non-GE crops,
as well as GE trees, through technology that reverses sterility - what
critics refer to as zombie seeds. In other words, seed fertility can
be recovered, possibly with a chemical application, which critics fear
would create a new monopoly for the seed industry.
"This is not a viable solution. No molecular technology exists for
biocontainment - and if it doesn't prevent 100 percent gene flow, it's
not a workable option," says Hope Shand, research director of ETC
Group, an organization that supports socially responsible technology.
"Why should taxpayers, farmers and society be asked to accept the
burden of defective technology and then accept an even riskier
technology to fix it? You really have to look at it in this light.
This technology is not safe. It shouldn't be used."
But according to Piet Schenkelaars, a Dutch biotech consultant for
the Transcontainer project, research is still in its infancy.
Schenkelaars agrees the technology isn't failsafe at the moment -
that's exactly why research is being conducted. "In a couple of years,
we can deploy the technology for more commercial purposes if it works
as it should - but that's something we don't know at the moment," he says.
Asked why, in the face of great public rejection of GE crops,
Europeans were being asked to support similar research, Schenkelaars
responded that public opposition was questionable. "Whether people
reject GE is doubtful. Surveys on public attitudes within Europe show
different levels of acceptance," he says.
However, substantial public resistance to genetically modified
crops does exist. In Europe, the most recent Eurobarometer, a survey
conducted since 1991, indicated that most Europeans remained skeptical
of genetically modified crops, expressing moral objections about
potential risks.
Or closer to home, take Quebec. A survey conducted for Quebec
Science found that more than 75 percent of the province's residents
would rather pay extra for organic food than buy GM foods at lower
prices. And in America, studies by the International Food Information
Council and the Pew Initiative on Food and Biotechnology found nearly
an identical lack of awareness of GM foods among consumers. But when
respondents were told how pervasive GM foods are in the United States,
they were outraged.
Says Schenkelaars, "I think we should develop our options as much
as possible and keep our minds open. Indeed, this technology is very
complex. We need to proceed with caution."
On that most critics would agree but find the very existence of
Schenkelaars, a public relations consultant fronting questions for
biotech, troubling.
"This is boiling down to a PR battle. There are two things
research has shown are the industry's biggest concerns: contamination
and public opinion," says Orin Langelle, co-founder of Global Justice
Ecology Project. "The industry is going to pull out their wallets to
convince the public this is good, but it's our job to broaden the
debate. We don't have money for big ad campaigns, but I guarantee the
other side does."
One thing that's missing in the current dialogue is discussion of
natural alternatives, such as hemp. Hemp does not need pesticides or
herbicides and yields three to four times more usable fiber per
hectare per year than forests. But growing hemp remains illegal in the
United States, where the DEA has taken a hard line on the crop as a
result of the war against its psychoactive cousin, marijuana, even
though hemp contains only trace amounts of THC. In terms of biofuels,
hemp is capable of producing 10 tons of biomass per acre in four
months - 10 times more methanol than corn, according to the Hemp
Industries Association.
Clearly, as this issue garners wider attention, alternatives
should be sought and public debate welcomed. Says Shand, "Research
continues to be done on something that has been repeatedly rejected by
the public, so why not put that money into researching something more
sustainable? We keep hearing the argument that technology, like
sterility in trees, is safe, but safe for whom? Is it safe for
companies introducing huge monoculture plantations, or is it safe for
the trees? You have to look at the larger impact."
Dara Colwell is a freelance writer based in Amsterdam.
