Tag Archives: GE Trees

by | 2010-05-13 · 14:32

GMO Trees Approved for U.S. South

Media Release                             May 13, 2010

U.S. Department of Agriculture Approves Release of GE Trees

USDA Approves ArborGen’s Request to Plant 260,000 Genetically Engineered Eucalyptus Trees Across U.S. South

Yesterday the USDA’s Animal Plant Health Inspection Service issued its decision to approve the mass-release of over a quarter of a million GE eucalyptus trees across seven states in the U.S. South (Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Louisiana, Florida, Georgia and South Carolina), despite overwhelming public opposition.

“We are very disappointed but not surprised by the USDA’s decision, which is likely to have severe social and environmental impacts,” stated Anne Petermann, Executive Director of Global Justice Ecology Project and Coordinator of the STOP GE Trees Campaign. “The USDA’s final environmental assessment disregarded concerns raised by thousands of people in comments submitted opposing the release of GE eucalyptus trees.”

The STOP GE Trees Campaign, which includes organizations, foresters and scientists from across the U.S. and around the world is preparing its next steps following the USDA decision.

Simone Lovera, Executive Director of the Global Forest Coalition said from her office in Asuncion, Paraguay, “This is not only bad for the U.S. This decision could open the door globally to these cold-tolerant eucalyptus and other transgenic trees which would have serious impacts on Indigenous and forest dwelling peoples around the world and lead to more biodiversity loss.”

To read the USDA’s final Environmental Assessment and Finding of No Significant Impact, go to: http://www.aphis.usda.gov/brs/biotech_ea_permits.html

For background on the work of the STOP GE Trees Campaign and the threats of GE eucalyptus trees and other GMO trees, go to http://www.nogetrees.org

To sign the petition opposing the mass-planting of GE trees, please go to:

http://www.globaljusticeecology.org/petition.php

Contact:
– Anne Petermann, Executive Director, Global Justice Ecology Project and Coordinator, STOP GE Trees Campaign, +1.802.578.0477
– Scot Quaranda, Campaigns Director, Dogwood Alliance, +1.828.251.2525 x 18

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by | 2010-02-25 · 17:36

Chiapas Action Alert & Photo of the Month

Elder Indigenous woman takes part in march for world peace in San Cristobal, Chiapas, Mexico.  The Indigenous Peoples’ march was led by Bishop Felipe Arizmendi on March 14, 2003, days before the U.S. began its “official” bombing of Iraq.
Chiapas, Mexico 2003
Photo:  Langelle/GJEP
This photo is relevant today for many reasons.  Next month is the 7th anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq and even though that war has slowed down, the attack on Afghanistan intensifies.  This photograph was also taken just after an emergency delegation went to Chiapas regarding forced evictions of Indigenous communities from the Montes Azules Biosphere Reserve in the Lacandon jungle.  Today in Chiapas, there are violent evictions taking place in the Lacandon jungle–this time to make room for oil palm plantations.
In 2003:

In March 2003 Orin Langelle travelled to Chiapas on an emergency investigative delegation to look into threatened evictions of Indigenous communities from the Lacandon jungle, and to examine the level of ecological destruction there.  Some communities were already relocated. The delegation, including journalists, photographers and organizers, visited threatened communities in the Lacandon, met with organizations working in the region and conducted overflights of the jungle, documenting the ecological damage.
Why the evictions?  Conservation International (CI) teamed up with the Mexican government to declare that Indigenous communities, including Zapatista support base communities living in the Monte Azules Integral Biosphere Reserve were destroying it.  This provided a supposedly ecological pretext–protection of the Monte Azules–as the reason for evicting these communities.
Our delegation proved that most of the communities had been conducting sustainable organic agriculture in the jungle for years.  They outlawed slash and burn farming and practiced regular crop rotation to protect the soil.  In fact, we found that it was the military that was causing massive destruction of the rainforest–which we witnessed on our overflight of the jungle.
This developed during the Mexican government’s thrust to push the Plan Puebla Panama mega-development scheme.  One of the PPP plans calls for the establishment of new timber plantations in the region.
Now in 2010:

México: Violent evictions in Chiapas for establishing oil palm monocultures

from World Rainforest Movement Bulletin, February 2010, http://www.wrm.org.uy
What follows is a communiqué from the Latin American Network against Monoculture Tree Plantations (RECOMA) reporting on the violent situation that local communities and Indigenous Peoples of the Lacandona forest in Chiapas are presently going through.
Appeal to international solidarity to protect the Lacandona Forest in Chiapas (Mexico), February 2010.

The Latin American Network against Monoculture Tree Plantations (RECOMA) is hereby denouncing the arbitrary treatment suffered by various communities in the Lacandona forest, in the area declared as the Montes Azules Biosphere Reserve, in the State of Chiapas, Mexico.Last January, the Chiapas State Congress approved funding for the construction of a palm oil processing plant. Shortly afterwards, dozens of families from the Municipality of Ocosingo were evicted from their territory, in order to give way for the expansion of monoculture oil palm plantations.

Dozens of heavily armed police arrived in helicopters and with aggressive violence evicted men, women and children from their homes, which they then burnt down and with no explanation, removed the community to the city of Palenque.

While the government talks about conservation and protection of the zone, it evicts those who have been truly responsible for making this conservation possible. At the same time, it replaces local ecosystems by oil palm monocultures.

Oil palm plantations are being promoted under an “ecological” mask, as if the production of agrofuels based on palm oil could be a solution to climate change. Apart from the falsehood of these affirmations, no mention is made of the serious negative impacts they generate such as violation of the local population and indigenous peoples’ human rights, as is presently the case in Chiapas.

Furthermore, monoculture oil palm plantations are one of the main causes of deforestation and therefore contribute to climate change through the release of carbon stored in the forests, while destroying the means of subsistence and food sovereignty of millions of small farmers, Indigenous and other communities, and generating serious negative environmental impacts. The plantations require agrochemicals that poison the workers and local communities and contaminate soil and water. Monoculture oil palm plantations eliminate biodiversity and deplete fresh water sources.
In sum, monoculture plantations for the production of paper and agrofuels (such as in the case of oil palm) worsen the living conditions and opportunities for survival of the local population and are only beneficial to a small handful of companies that become rich at the expense of social and environmental destruction.
For this reason, we are appealing to the international community to condemn the plans for the expansion of monoculture oil palm plantations in Mexico, denouncing this situation by all means at your disposal.
To Protest these evictions, contact:
The Embassy of Mexico:
1911 Pennsylvania Ave.
Washington DC 20006
USA
Telephone: (202) 728-1600
Support the work of Global Justice Ecology Project for Indigenous Peoples’ Rights and Forest Protection

For ongoing updates on the progress of Global Justice Ecology Project, please visit our Website: http://www.globaljusticeecology.org
Climate Connections blog: www.climatevoices.wordpress.com
Follow us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/Climatejustice1.

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by | 2010-02-11 · 20:14

Invasive GE Eucalyptus Threatens Southern Forests & Water

For Immediate Release            February 11, 2010

Contact: Dr. Neil Carman, Plant Scientist, Sierra Club +1.512.663.9594
Anne Petermann, Executive Director, Global Justice Ecology Project +1.802.578.0477
Scot Quaranda, Campaign Director, Dogwood Alliance +1.828.242.3596
George Kimbrell, Senior Staff Attorney, Center for Food Safety +1.571.527.8618

Groups Force USDA to Re-release Draft Environmental Assessment on Genetically Engineered Eucalyptus Trees for Southern U.S. Forests: Original Assessment Lacked Key U.S. Forest Service Hydrological Studies

The U.S. Department of Agriculture re-released their draft environmental assessment [1] regarding a request by ArborGen, a subsidiary of timber giants International Paper and MeadWestvaco, to plant over a quarter of a million genetically engineered eucalyptus trees in so-called “test plots” across seven southern U.S. states. [2]

“If these invasive GE eucalyptus are planted across the South on this large of a scale, it is highly likely that fertile seeds will escape into surrounding forests,” said Dr. Neil Carman, a plant scientist with the Sierra Club.  “This is a major problem since eucalyptus is already known for its invasiveness.  Once they escape into the forests, there is no way to call them back.  It would be an ecological nightmare for southern forests.”

The environmental assessment was re-released by the USDA after groups concerned about the environmental impacts of transgenic eucalyptus trees pointed out that the assessment was missing key hydrological studies conducted by the U.S. Forest Service that directly refute the conclusions of the USDA’s draft environmental assessment which recommend approving ArborGen’s request.  The USFS studies point out that eucalyptus trees have heavy water requirements and can seriously impact ground and surface water reserves. [3]

The USDA is seeking public comments on their draft environmental assessment through February 18th, 2010. [4]

“In countries that are already suffering the impacts of large-scale eucalyptus plantations–like Brazil, Chile and South Africa–people have organized massive campaigns against them,” stated Anne Petermann, Executive Director of Global Justice Ecology Project and North American representative of the Global Forest Coalition.  “This is because eucalyptus plantations have devastated forests and communities.  In Brazil, the Mata Atlantica forest has been all but wiped out by eucalyptus plantations.  In Chile, communities living near eucalyptus plantations have lost their access to fresh water.”

Other new information in the assessment reveals that some of the supposedly infertile engineered eucalyptus trees in existing field trials produced fertile seeds.  Eucalyptus is a non-native tree and numerous species of eucalyptus are already considered invasive.  This new transgenic (or GMO) eucalyptus has been engineered to tolerate colder temperatures giving it the potential for invading forest ecosystems throughout the South.

“I had hoped that the disaster of kudzu would have taught us the consequences of releasing invasive species into the environment,” agreed Scot Quaranda, Campaign Director for the Dogwood Alliance.  “Instead, ArborGen wants to release invasive GE eucalyptus trees.  Unlike kudzu, however, these trees are not only invasive, they are also highly flammable and use huge quantities of fresh water.  California is already spending millions to eradicate invasive and flammable eucalyptus trees.  We do not want these invasive trees to be mass-planted in the South.”

The STOP GE Trees Campaign [5] is working with the Center for Food Safety on plans to stop ArborGen’s proposal to release hundreds of thousands of genetically engineered eucalyptus trees across the U.S. South.  “This is a very slippery slope,” warns George Kimbrell, an attorney for the Center for Food Safety. “Allowing the release of these GE eucalyptus trees will set a legal precedent that could allow the release of genetically engineered poplars or pines–which have wild relatives across the continent.  The commercial release of engineered versions of native trees would lead to the contamination of forests with engineered pollen.  Once this occurs there is absolutely nothing that can be done to stop the further contamination of more forests.  We have to stop the release of GE trees before this contamination occurs.”

The public is encouraged to submit comments to the USDA regarding the ArborGen proposal to release 260,000 genetically engineered cold tolerant eucalyptus trees across seven southern states.  For details on this, please visit: http://www.globaljusticeecology.org/stopgetrees.php?tabs=0

[1] To download the USDA’s December 17, 2009 revised draft environmental assessment, go to: http://www.aphis.usda.gov/brs/aphisdocs/08_014101rm_ea2.pdf

[2] The seven states targeted for ArborGen’s GE eucalyptus deployment are South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas.

[3] The summary findings of the USFS with regard to the impacts of eucalyptus plantations on water resources can be found on page 57 of the new USDA draft environmental assessment.  These findings include the fact that the water usage by eucalyptus plantations is at least double the water usage by other forest types, and that afforestation to eucalyptus plantations will reduce stream flow, lower the water table and affect groundwater recharge.

[4] Comments to the USDA can be submitted at: http://www.regulations.gov/search/Regs/home.html#submitComment?R=09000064809c344a

[5] Global Justice Ecology Project coordinates the STOP Genetically Engineered Trees Campaign.  The Sierra Club and Dogwood Alliance are part of the Steering Committee for the Campaign.  For more information on the campaign, go to: http://www.nogetrees.org.

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by | 2009-12-18 · 16:40

REDD – Camila Moreno and Miguel Lovera on Democracy Now!

Camila Moreno and Chief Paraguayan Negotiator on Democracy Now!

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by | 2009-12-10 · 23:52

Post #6 December 10, 2009

Camila Moreno rails against REDD. Photo: Petermann/ GJEP-GFC

Outrage at CorporateHaven

by Anne Petermann, Executive Director, Global Justice Ecology Project

Emotions here at the UN Climate Conference in Copenhagen are beginning to run very high.

The leak to the press of a document prepared by the Danish government in collaboration with other rich countries raised a lot of ire among those countries and peoples who were excluded from this process, which apparently occurred behind some very closed and secret doors.

In response, the African delegation staged a spontaneous and angry protest in the halls of the Bella Center, chanting “two degrees is suicide!” in reference to a section of the leaked Danish that would allow for a two degree rise in global temperatures–which would lead to the deaths of millions of people in Africa due to expanding droughts and floods, as well as loss of crop productivity.

And this theme of expressing outrage over the impacts of climate change on indigenous and forest dependent communities and others was carried over with a series of events and protests today.

This morning, on Human Rights Day, the Indigenous Environmental Network and the Indigenous Peoples Power Project held a “Procession, Prayer and Rally for Indigenous Rights” at the US Embassy in Copenhagen.  On the day that Obama accepted his unfathomably ironic Nobel Peace Prize, this rally took place to raise awareness about the impacts of the US energy industry’s war on Indigenous lands in the US.  Later in the day another Indigenous protest was held against the US when Interior Secretary Ken Salazar spoke at a press conference about the US commitment to renewable energy–on the very same day they announced that they were opening up the arctic to oil drilling.  Hypocritical doesn’t even begin to describe this callous and calculated PR move.

The expansion of oil drilling in the Arctic is a slap in the face to the rest of the world that came to Copenhagen hoping for leadership from Obama, and instead got the same old US obstructionism that has contributed to the negative image of the US internationally.

The Change promised by the Obama Administration seemingly refers to Climate Change.  It really has been a whole lot of hot air.

As I write this, the Indigenous Peoples Speak Out is taking place.  Global Justice Ecology Project teamed up with the Indigenous Environmental Network with co-sponsorship by Global Forest Coalition to create a space for Indigenous Peoples to share their experiences, stories and songs.  We felt this was a critically important event to highlight the voices of Peoples who are being shut out of the official climate negotiations, even though they are some of the peoples being most profoundly affected by the climate crisis.

The event started with a prayer by IEN Director Tom Goldtooth and songs by IEN youth and staff–Day Gots and Clayton Thomas-Mueller.  Throughout the afternoon Indigenous Peoples shared their stories about the histories of their people, and the impacts of fossil fuels and climate change on their communities and lands.  Powerful voices poignantly described the effects of the melting of the arctic on the islands off of Alaska, the devastating results of the rising sea levels on the islands of the South Pacific, the cancers and diseases being experienced by native peoples as a result of the energy industry.  Participants came from North and South America, Africa and the South Pacific, yet the stories they shared all echoed one another.

The undercurrent was one of profound anger and sadness.

Down the hall, a Peoples Tribunal on Climate Debt is under way, with representatives of the developing world discussing the historical obligations of rich countries to repay the South for the resources stolen over the course of hundreds of years, and for the impacts today of climate change.

Yesterday, Global Justice Ecology Project organized a panel on the UN’s Reducing Emissions from Deforestation scheme.  Presenters included Sandy Gauntlett, a Maori from Aoteroa (New Zealand) who expressed his seething ire over REDD because it was doing nothing to stop the sinking of the islands of his region.  Camila Moreno was indignant over the implementation of REDD in Brazil, where some of the people most responsible for the rampant destruction of the Amazon stood to profit handsomely from this scheme.  Marcial Arias, a Kuna from Panama passionately described the displacement of Indigenous Peoples in Panama for projects designed to offset carbon emissions in the North.

The outrage is growing.  It has been simmering under the surface with year after year of inaction, and now the rapidly accelerating crisis of climate change has caused the pot to begin boiling over, and we will be seeing more and more outrage and anger over the coming days.

We will do our best to cover these protests and their messages and give you our reactions to them.

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by | 2009-10-29 · 15:14

GJEP’s Anne Petermann on WORT FM

October 26th--Check out Global Justice Ecology Project’s E.D., Anne Petermann, speaking about the links between forests, the REDD scheme and the upcoming climate talks in Copenhagen (CorporateHaven) on WORT’s program A Public Affair out of Madison, Wisconsin.  She is in interviewed in the second half of the show after co-author of Climate Coverup, The Crusade to Deny Global Warming, James Hogan.

To listen, please click HERE

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by | 2009-10-23 · 21:17

World Forestry Congress: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Plantations

Anne Petermann, Executive Director, Global Justice Ecology Project & North American Focal Point of Global Forest Coalition, posted on this blog everyday last week from the World Forestry Congress.

Buenos Aires, Argentina Oct. 23, 2009- Adjacent to the lounge area at the World Forestry Congress are two shallow pools with sporadically placed globs of water plants growing in them.  Floating in and among these water plants, posing as water lilies, are big pink Gerber Daisies.  Hanging from the ceiling are plastic birds suspended by fishing line.  Over the loudspeaker, very tinny sounding recorded bird songs.  This bizarre setting, I believe, serves as a perfect metaphor for what I have seen at this, my first, World Forestry Congress.

In seminar after seminar I have witnessed plantation-crazed maniacs posing as people deeply concerned with the well-being of our forests.  Even at the Forest Restoration session the topic was not threats to the world’s forests and techniques to restore forests and their biodiversity.  No, the workshop on “restoring forests” was all about growing monoculture tree plantations. (sigh.)

Nearly every session here has been first and foremost a public relations campaign aimed at drilling into the heads of all, but especially the young impressionable forestry students, that the industrial plantation forestry is our best bet for saving the forests.  These forestry hucksters congratulate themselves and each other for being such good con artists.  And their jargon is flawless.  They have coopted the terminology developed by social movements and environmental organizations brilliantly.  Capacity building and Consultations with Indigenous Peoples, Sustainable Forestry Management, Net Zero Deforestation, Forest Restoration, Reducing Emissions from Deforestation, Ending Illegal Logging, Certification, Advancing Social and Ecological Values, Environmental Stewardship, Sustainability Criteria… and on and on…  So beautiful, so moving. (Pay NO attention to the man behind the curtain!)

But if you actually listen to the presentations you can find the subtext and hear what they are actually saying.  It is like something from George Orwell’s 1984.  For example, yesterday at a session on REDD, a woman overseeing a REDD project in Brazil pointed out that her project in the Juma forest is raising money by partnering with corporations including Marriott and Coke.  For every night someone stays in a Marriott hotel, they donate $1 to the REDD project in order to offset the emissions of their guests (no, not the emissions released BY their guests).  The lesson: the more we consume, the more we conserve.  Brilliant!

This logic then also spills over into the effort to promote trees for bioenergy as a means to fight climate change.  We can reduce emissions from deforestation while we reduce more emissions by logging more trees!  2+2=5!  War is Peace! (Hmmm, the guy sending more troops to kill people in Afghanistan DID just got the Nobel Peace Prize…)

Then there was the World Wildlife Fund session on Thursday night on “Stimulating  Forest Investments—how to finance forest destruction, oops, I mean, conservation.  (Funded, you might like to know, by CitiBank and USAID, among others.)

Mark Constantine, of the International Finance Corporation talked about their work in Indonesia.  He had a very neat and tidy little chart that talked about “Challenges” (there’s that word again!) in one column and “Opportunities” in another.

Challenge: Peat Swamp Forest Conversion.  Opportunity: Reforestation of Degraded Lands.  Now, remember boys and girls what we just learned about “forest restoration.”  That’s right, the “challenge” of peat swamp forest destruction in Indonesia provides us with the “opportunity” to plant tree monocultures!

In another chart, he listed the “Risks” of certain activities, next to a column called “mitigation.”  The first item under “risks” was “unsustainable logging & biodiversity loss”  The mitigation: certification and NGO partnerships.  In other words, when you do unsustainable logging and destroy biodiversity, you will need to mitigate your image by getting sustainable forestry certification and partnering with an NGO like WWF.

Another presenter was Roberto Waack, from the Forest Stewardship Council, your friendly neighborhood forest certifiers.  (Didn’t realize forests needed to be certified, did you? You thought they just grew.)  His presentation was quite illuminating.  First he pointed out what FSC does: “Advancing Sustainable Forest Management [you will remember from our lesson yesterday that SFM includes conversion of forests to monoculture timber plantations] through Standards, Certification and Labeling.”

They now have 115 million hectares of certified forests (both “natural” and “planted”) in 82 countries, with over 15,000 FSC certificate holders in 99 countries.  They have certified productive forests worth over $20 billion. In 2007, they experienced 40% growth in their FSC “supply chain.”  You should have seen their graph!  Nothing but up, up, up! FSC, he explained, is a “multi-billion dollar brand.”

They are also working with operators to help them transition to “clean energy” from biomass, and are supporting new markets and multiple use of forests—including bioenergy.

This is all well and good, you say, but what has it got to do with protecting forests?  Honestly, I have no idea…

The final session of the day is going on as I write this.  It is the session on “recommendations” for the congress.  As my recommendations would be in the realm of removing themselves from the planet, I thought it best to abstain from attending.  If I had to hear one more talking head blather about sustainably destroying the planet, I would have lost my mind completely.

So there you have it.  The World Forestry Congress in a nutshell.  6,000 participants (including approximately 6 Indigenous People) and millions of tons of emissions devoted to exactly what purpose?  Toward the noble goal of building the capacity to manage forests sustainably toward zero net deforestation in order to restore the forest, thereby reducing emissions from deforestation and ending illegal logging through certified sustainability criteria and environmental stewardship that advances social and ecological values.

Who could argue with that?

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by | 2009-10-21 · 15:03

Missive From Nutlandia

Blog post by Anne Petermann, Executive Director, Global Justice Ecology Project & North American Focal Point of Global Forest Coalition. Everyday this week she will be posting an update from the World Forestry Congress on this blog.

Buenos Aires, Argentina-I knew, before I came to the World Forestry Congress, that it was largely going to be a trade show for the timber industry and its allies, but knowing that and being in the midst of it have proven to be quite different things.

Tuesday’s exercise in absurdity was a symposium organized by the International Union of Forest Research Organizations (IUFRO-acronym pronounced You-Frew), focused on Emerging Issues in Forest Science.  Unfortunately, the speaker who was to address emerging genetic engineering technologies cancelled at the last minute.  I was very much hoping to hear the future direction of transgenic tree technology from the perspective of You-Frew.

Never-the-less, the other speakers did not disappoint.  The over-arching theme was the conflation of forests and plantations.   Each started his/her presentation (there were six white men and one white woman) by talking about the need to protect forests and the services they provide: clean water, food, energy, shelter, fodder, biodiversity and livelihoods.  They would then shift gears to discuss tree plantations and the emerging challenges they are confronting with regard to various aspects of plantation forestry. What they neglected to mentioned was that tree plantations and forests are, in fact, completely and totally different.  Not only do tree plantations NOT provide clean water, food, shelter or biodiversity, tree plantations actually destroy biodiversity, deplete water and displace communities because the once diverse forest was eliminated to make room for the plantation.

The most schizophrenic presentation, however, was by David Crown, head of IUFRO’s Division 5, which specializes in Forest Products.

He launched into his presentation by pointing out that the IUFRO estimates that the world is losing forests at the rate of 13 million hectares per year, and that population increase and climate change are further increasing pressures on the world’s forests and providing a huge challenge. (They LOVED to talk about challenges!)  He pointed out that soil, water and carbon need to be protected through conservation measures while maintaining traditional uses of the forests and new uses such as bio-energy.

He then moved on to assert that a major goal for the forest products industry is insuring that wood is THE preferred material for construction and manufacture.

So, in other words, we need to conserve forests while simultaneously increasing the demand for wood…

Of course, this is indicative of the fundamental psychosis of industrial forestry proponents: that we must continually expand fast growing timber plantations in order to get more wood from less land and thereby protect native forests. On its surface, there may appear to be a logic behind the notion that we can protect forests by concentrating the harvesting of wood products on high-productivity plantations. However, the reality does not match the rhetoric.  The massively growing demand for wood–predicted by the IUFRO to be an increase of 50% within the century–cannot be met sustainably.  The rising rate of illegal and legal logging in forests, the loss of agricultural lands to expanding tree plantations, and the conversion of biodiverse native grasslands and forests to timber plantations, are just a few of the impacts in which this rising demand for wood will result.

There was not one–Not ONE–mention in any of the presentations about demand reduction for forest protection.

Michael Wingfield, who Coordinates the Forest Health Division at IUFRO (Division 7) was the only one of the IUFRO speakers who made any distinction between tree plantations and forests. He pointed out that plantations were having a negative impact on forests due to the fact that plantations were highly susceptible to disease and insect infestations, though this seemed to mystify him when he stated, “we don’t really know what’s going on.”  It was this tendency of plantations to succumb to ever worsening disease and insect infestations that led him to conclude that all plantations in the future would be comprised of GM trees.

Of course, first year ecology students know that monocultures–that is, large expanses of a single species of plant–are, by their very nature, ideal targets for insects, disease, fungal infestations, etc.  Ironically, the industrial forestry response to this reality, and the spreading epidemics in monoculture timber plantations, is not to restore biodiverse native forests that are naturally resilient, nor to suggest that maybe shipping forest products and their exotic pests around the planet should be discouraged, but rather to further the reductionist approach and create vast monocultures of many thousands of clones derived from a single individual tree that has been engineered for a particular profitable trait.

Toward the end of the session, I was called on to ask a question.   I asked Mr. Wingfield what he was doing to respond to the threats that GE tree plantations pose to native forests.  I gave the example of the Bt insect resistant poplar plantations in China that have been documented as contaminating native poplars with the Bt trait. I further suggested this would have a very negative impact on the forest ecosystem, especially species of songbirds that depend on the insect targeted by the Bt as a critical source of food.

Unfortunately, the moderator intervened saying the session had run out of time and it suddenly ended before my question was answered.

Undeterred, I approached Mr. Wingfield following the end of the session.  He answered me by saying, “well.  I’m pro-GMO.”  He made some vague reference to the “successes” of GMO food as the reason for his Franken-tree ferver. (He apparently missed the studies that have come out recently debunking the industry hype about the increased yield of GE crops.)  He did agree, however, that native species of GE trees that could pollinate should not be used.  His opinion was that only non-native GE trees should be used or trees that could not pollinate.  I chose not to argue ecology with him, or to point out that even tree engineers overwhelmingly have concerns about “contamination of non-target organisms” by GE trees, and will not give 100% guarantees that their trees will maintain their sterility permanently.  Or to point out that non-native plantations of eucalyptus, for example, have been a total ecological disaster because they cannot support biodiversity or social needs.

No, I could not bring myself to argue with someone so entrenched in his delusion that GMO tree plantations were the way of the future in the face of all evidence to the contrary.  And that has been the take-away lesson of the World Forestry Congress so far: that timber industry proponents have an amazing ability to rationalize and justify their socially and ecologically destructive paradigm that promotes incessantly growing demand for wood products met through the industrialization of trees–and all under the auspices of protecting forests.

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