Category Archives: GE Trees

by | 2013-04-30 · 13:00

U.S. public overwhelmingly rejects genetically engineered trees

April 30, 2013. Source: Global Justice Ecology Project

GE Trees protest photo

By a majority of almost 99.99% to .01%, the US public overwhelming rejected steps toward the legalization of genetically engineered trees during the USDA APHIS public comment period that ended yesterday. The comments were in response to a petition by genetically engineered (GE) tree company ArborGen requesting permission to commercially sell their GE freeze tolerant eucalyptus trees.  Calls for a ban on the technology flooded the APHIS office, through individual online comments, petitions and online virtual meetings.

“Yesterday, during APHIS’s ‘Invasive Species Month,’ the people of the US issued a firm demand to APHIS to reject invasive, flammable genetically engineered (GE) eucalyptus trees,”said Anne Petermann, Global Justice Ecology Project Executive Director and Coordinator of the Campaign to STOP Genetically Engineered (GE) Trees. “We will continue to hold the government accountable to the will of the people, rather than corporate interests.”

South Carolina-based ArborGen hopes to sell billions of GE cold-tolerant eucalyptus trees for planting across millions of acres in the US South in vast industrial plantations to supply biofuel, biomass electricity and paper production.

Dr. Rachel Smolker, Co-Director of Biofuelwatch stated, “ArborGen’s reckless vision of using the US South as a giant sacrifice zone for energy production would wreak havoc on rural communities, native forests and wildlife across the region, pushing already endangered species like the Louisiana Black Bear and the Red-cockaded Woodpecker over the edge.” Dr. Smolker added, “and despite the rhetoric about replacing fossil fuels with climate-friendly fuels, this wood-based energy will actually worsen climate change.”
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by | · 10:58

Audio: Stop the spread of GE trees in the South before it starts!

Note: Anne Petermann is Executive Director of Global Justice Ecology Project, which coordinates the Campaign to STOP Genetically Engineered (GE) Trees.  Click here for the link to the radio interview, and for info on the upcoming protests, click here: http://www.treebiotech2013.org/.

-The GJEP Team

April 28 2013. Source: The Final Straw Radio

STOP GE Trees Campaign

Anne Petermann, of Global Justice Ecology Project, joins us this week to talk about the threats posed by Genetically Engineered Trees getting released into the U.S. as the USDA considers allowing Arborgen to found millions of acres of plantations across the southern U.S. These plantations, reaching from Texas to South Carolina, where the company is based, could destroy forest diversity, kill wildlife, exacerbate droughts, feed fire storms (not Firestorm), and spread quickly with the help of cold-resistant gene modification.

In the last week of May, Asheville will be hosting a Biotech Tree conference. Concurrently, Katuah Earth First! and GJEP (along with other projects) will be holding protests and workshops around the issues of GE Trees to educate the public and grow resistance.

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Filed under Actions / Protest, Climate Change, Climate Justice, Ending the Era of Extreme Energy, False Solutions to Climate Change, GE Trees, Genetic Engineering, Green Economy

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by | 2013-04-23 · 09:00

KPFK Sojourner Truth Earth Minute: Dangerous and unlabeled GMO apples expected to hit supermarkets this year

kpfk_logoGlobal Justice Ecology Project teams up with the Sojourner Truth show on KPFK Pacifica Los Angeles for a weekly Earth Minute each Tuesday and a weekly Earth Watch interview each Thursday.

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by | 2013-02-26 · 14:19

Global Justice Ecology Project to Receive 2013 International White Dove Award

We’re celebrating our 10th Anniversary this year!


Global Justice Ecology Project is being awarded the 2013 International White Dove Award this Friday evening from the Rochester Committee on Latin America (ROCLA) in Rochester, NY.

The White Dove Award honors GJEP’s long-time international work to protect the environment, defend the rights of Indigenous Peoples, preserve forests, and stop the release of genetically engineered trees.  For many years GJEP’s co-founders Orin Langelle and Anne Petermann have worked in solidarity with social movements, communities and organizations from around the world with a focus on Mexico, Central America and South America.

This awards dinner also marks the 40th anniversary of ROCLA–which was founded in response to the coup by brutal Chilean dictator Pinochet.  GJEP Executive Director Anne Petermann points out that some of the first work GJEP did was in solidarity with the Mapuche people of Chile who are still fighting for the return of their ancestral lands, stolen by the Pinochet regime and given to timber multinationals.

But the US has always treated Latin America as a ‘resource colony’ for cheap resources and labor.  The struggle for the land and the struggle for peoples’ self-determination are two sides of the same coin.

Over the years, GJEP Board Chair Orin Langelle has organized many delegations to Nicaragua’s Bosawas rainforest and to Chiapas, Mexico in rebel Zapatista territory.  He directs Langelle Photography and will show slides of GJEP’s work at the Award’s dinner.

“I approach my role as a concerned photographer by not merely documenting the struggle for social and ecological justice, but by being an active part of it,”

“My photography is an historical look at social movements, struggle and everyday life.  It is designed to counter the societal amnesia from which we collectively suffer-especially with regard to the history of social and ecological struggles. This is not merely a chronicling of history, but a call out to inspire new generations to participate in the making of a new history.  For there has been no time when such a call has been so badly needed.”  –Orin Langelle


The International White Dove Award will be presented at ROCLAs Annual Rice & Beans Dinner, Friday, March 1, 2013, 5:30 PM at Gates Presbyterian Church 1049 Wegman Road, Rochester, NY.

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Filed under Climate Change, Climate Justice, Events, Forests, GE Trees, Indigenous Peoples, Latin America-Caribbean

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by | 2013-02-16 · 11:16

KPFK Earth Watch interview: On Climate Change and Obama’s State of the Union Address

This week’s “Earth Watch” segment on KPFK features Dr. Rachel Smolker, Co-director of Biofuelwatch, who weighs in on President Obama’s proposals on climate change in his State of the Union Address.

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Filed under Bioenergy / Agrofuels, Climate Change, Climate Justice, Ending the Era of Extreme Energy, Energy, False Solutions to Climate Change, Forests, GE Trees, Green Economy, Indigenous Peoples, Land Grabs

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by | 2013-02-12 · 10:25

Genetically engineered trees for bioenergy pose major threat to southern forests

Note: Global Justice Ecology Project coordinates the STOP Genetically Engineered Trees Campaign.  Join us in telling the USDA to ban genetically engineered trees by signing the petition here.

-The GJEP Team

February 12, 2013. Source: Global Justice Ecology Project

In response to industry plans to develop eucalyptus plantations across the US South[1], environmental groups[2] are raising serious concerns about the impacts of eucalyptus plantations on forests, rural communities, wildlife and the climate, especially if those trees are genetically engineered.

EcoGen, LLC recently announced plans to develop eucalyptus plantations in southern Florida to feed biomass facilities.  Additionally, South Carolina-based ArborGen has requested USDA permission to sell billions of genetically engineered cold tolerant eucalyptus trees for plantations in South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas.  The USDA is expected to respond to this request in the coming months.

Eucalyptus trees are documented as an invasive pest in California and Florida.  But because they cannot grow in sub-freezing temperatures, they have been engineered to be cold-tolerant, enabling them to survive temperatures down to 20°f – vastly expanding their range.

Besides being highly invasive–the Charlotte Observer called them “the kudzu of the 2010s”–eucalyptus plantations deplete ground water and can even worsen droughts.  The US Forest Service opposes GE eucalyptus plantations due to their impact on ground water and streams. [3,4]

“GE eucalyptus trees are a disaster waiting to happen–it is critical the USDA reject them,” said Global Justice Ecology Project Executive Director Anne Petermann.  “In addition to being invasive, eucalyptus trees are explosively flammable.  In a region that has been plagued by droughts in recent years, developing plantations of an invasive, water-greedy and fire-prone tree is foolhardy and dangerous.”

Petermann coordinates the international STOP GE Trees Campaign [5], which has collected thousands of signatures supporting a ban on GE trees due to their potentially catastrophic impacts on communities and forests.

“The forests of the Southeast are some of the most biodiverse in the world,” said Scot Quaranda, Campaign Director of Asheville, NC-based Dogwood Alliance. “They contain species found nowhere else. Species like the Louisiana Black Bear, the golden-cheeked warbler and the red-cockaded woodpecker are already endangered. Eucalyptus plantations could push these and other species over the edge,” he added.

The Georgia Department of Wildlife opposes GE eucalyptus trees due to these impacts. [6]

The STOP GE Trees Campaign is planning events around the Tree Biotechnology 2013 Conference this May in Asheville, NC, where GE tree industry representatives and researchers will gather to discuss the use of GE trees and their deployment across the US South.

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by | 2012-12-28 · 09:00

One hour special on KPFK features GJEP and Indigenous Environmental Network

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Featuring the Tar Sands, Hurricane Sandy, climate justice and genetically engineered trees

Global Justice Ecology Project teamed up with the Sojourner Truth show in LA for a series of events in late-November, including the following one-hour in-studio interview featuring Clayton Thomas-Muller, Tar Sands Co-Director with the Indigenous Environmental Network; Orin Langelle, Board Chair for Global Justice Ecology Project, and Anne Petermann, GJEP Executive Director.  They discussed the link between Hurricane Sandy, climate change, social justice and extreme energy.  To listen, click the link below.

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by | 2012-12-18 · 12:00

Audio: Climate change resistance with Anne Petermann of Global Justice Ecology Project

Note: Anne Petermann is the Executive Director of Global Justice Ecology Project, and directs the international STOP Genetically Engineered Trees Campaign

-The GJEP Team

December 17, 2012.  Source: Clearing the Fog Radio

Listen to the audio here.

Anne Petermann of the Global Justice Ecology Project discusses the recent climate conference in Doha, Qatar which is characterized more as a trade show for corporations looking to profit from climate change than a conference about solutions, and the increasing exclusion of non-corporate voices. She says solutions to the climate crisis are coming from the bottom up.

Ramsey Sprague of the Tar Sands Blockade (http://tarsandsblockade.org/) describes the growing resistance to the Keystone XL Pipeline and the upcoming direct action training camp and action Jan. 3 to 8. Co-hosts Margaret and Kevin will participate in that action and urge you to support it or participate as well. And ecology activist Diane Wilson who is on her 19th day of a hunger strike describes why she is risking her life to hold Valero Oil accountable to her community.

 

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Filed under Carbon Trading, Climate Change, Climate Justice, Coal, Corporate Globalization, Ending the Era of Extreme Energy, False Solutions to Climate Change, GE Trees, Green Economy, Independent Media, UNFCCC

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