To Listen to this week’s Earth Minute on the Sojourner Truth show on KPFK Los Angeles, click on:
http://archive.kpfk.org/parchive/mp3/kpfk_110726_070010sojourner.MP3
And forward to minute 26:00
Category Archives: Genetic Engineering
KPFK Earth Minute on USDA Attempt to Deregulate GMO Plants
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Radio Interview: The Myth of the Industrial Forest
Listen to Daphne Wysham’s Interview with Global Justice Ecology Project Executive Director Anne Petermann on the threat of genetically engineered eucalyptus trees, for the EarthBeat Radio Segment, The Myth of the Industrial Forest which played on EcoShock Radio.
Go to: http://209.217.209.33/~esnet/downloads/ES_110713_Show_LoFi.mp3
and forward to minute 26:45.
Also on that episode is an interview with Dr. Rachel Smolker of Biofuelwatch on the myth of biochar; and an interview with Dr. Helen Caldicott about the nuclear power threat.
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Filed under Bioenergy / Agrofuels, False Solutions to Climate Change, GE Trees, Genetic Engineering, Posts from Anne Petermann, REDD, UNFCCC
Forests Threatened by Billions of GMO Tree Clones
Genetically Engineered Eucalyptus Trees–Like Flammable Kudzu
Dear GJEP Friends and Supporters,
July 20, 2011
When I watched GE tree company ArborGen’s presentation at the Tree Biotechnology 2011 Conference two weeks ago in Brazil, it was clear that they are determined to grow and sell their GE eucalyptus tree clones–at a rate of half a billion per year–for plantations across the U.S. South from Texas to Florida.
We are even more determined to stop them. You can help us stop this menace by sending a donation to the STOP GE Trees Campaign. We need to raise $20,000 before the end of the summer to meet the rapidly rising need for this campaign. Please help us achieve this goal by sending a gift today.
Donate securely through our Network for Good donation page, or through our Paypal account (especially for international donations).
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| A “green desert’ eucalyptus plantation with pile of logs |
“Healthy forests are absolutely critical for providing breathable air, drinkable water and the biodiversity and protection from climate change. The variety of ecosystems found in U.S. Southern forests- from Cumberland Plateau hardwoods, to coastal wetlands to the cypress swamps of the deep south–nurture specific animal and plant species that are important to maintaining a balanced and healthy environment. They are places of breathtaking natural beauty.” –Dogwood Alliance
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| Native Southern Forest, Courtesy Dogwood Alliance |
These amazing forests are under threat. Right now, one in five acres of these forests have been converted to pine plantations-about 42 million acres. International Paper, a joint owner of ArborGen and one of the largest timber multinationals in the world, wants to double the acreage of timber plantations in the South to 84 million acres-using GE eucalyptus trees. Many animal and plant species will be put at grave risk.
GE eucalyptus plantations are notoriously invasive, flammable and dry up ground water. Already, large areas of the Southern U.S. are facing drought conditions. Even the U.S. Forest Service has expressed concern about ArborGen’s GE eucalyptus trees impacting on water. Because these plantations would be heavily sprayed with toxic herbicides and pesticides, they would also contaminate water sources.
In Brazil eucalyptus plantation are called “green deserts” because they are devoid of other plant or animal life.
Because these GE eucalyptus trees have been modified for cold tolerance, they could be sold all over the world for planting in regions currently too cold for eucalyptus. Forests worldwide would be threatened.
Please help us stop this nightmare before it is too late, send a contribution today.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has approved ArborGen’s plan to plant large outdoor field trials of GE eucalyptus across seven southern U.S. states, from Texas to Florida. The USDA ignored overwhelming public opposition and several government agencies that expressed serious concerns.
For this reason, Global Justice Ecology Project, Dogwood Alliance and Sierra Club have joined attorneys at the Center for Food Safety and the Center for Biological Diversity to sue the USDA to stop these field trials.
ArborGen admits these field trials are the next step toward “deregulation” of GE eucalyptus trees-which would allow GE eucalyptus trees to be grown anywhere by anyone with no oversight.
This is one fight to save the forests that we can win. You can help us stop GE trees. But we need your help today.
Donate securely online through Network for Good , or our Paypal account , or send a check made out to GJEP to The STOP GE Trees Campaign, PO Box 412, Hinesburg, VT 05461.
P.S. Don’t forget to consider becoming a monthly supporter. You can do this simply by clicking the button below. It will take you to a secure donation page where one of your options is to make a “recurring” donation either monthly or quarterly. And if you want to receive our occasional email updates, be sure to send us your email address.
Thanks very much for your support,
Anne Petermann
Executive Director
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Filed under Biodiversity, Climate Change, GE Trees, Genetic Engineering, Land Grabs, Posts from Anne Petermann
Listen to This Week’s Earth Minute on KPFK Los Angeles: GE Rice Contamination Settlement
Genetic rice lawsuit in St. Louis settled for $750 million
Listen to the Earth Minute on KPFK by going to the following link and forwarding to minute 35:06.
http://archive.kpfk.org/parchive/mp3/kpfk_110712_070010sojourner.MP3
Late in the afternoon of Friday July 1st, just before the holiday weekend, Bayer CropScience agreed to pay $750 million to farmers in five states due to the contamination of the U.S. rice supply with Bayer’s LibertyLink GMO rice in 2006. This GMO rice had not been approved for human consumption, yet somehow found its way into the rice supply.
Because of the rice contamination scandal, Rice futures plunged, and Europe and Japan banned the import of U.S. rice, which devastated US rice farmers. Many farmers had to leave fields fallow, plant lower-value crops or spend money cleaning equipment of contaminated rice.
The first of what would eventually grow to more than 400 lawsuits representing 11,000 plaintiffs were filed within weeks. Many were eventually consolidated in federal court in Saint Louis Missouri.
The attorney for the farmers believes the outcome sends a signal to those who develop genetically modified seeds that they need to keep those seeds very carefully contained…”
Other groups, like ours, believe that GMOs just shouldn’t be grown in the first place.
For the Earth Minute and the Sojourner Truth Show this is Anne Petermann from Global Justice Ecology Project
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Filed under Climate Change, Earth Minute, Food Sovereignty, Genetic Engineering, Posts from Anne Petermann
Tree Biotechnology Conference Wrap Up Blog Post Part II
Arraial d’Ajuda, Bahia, Brazil (Part II of II)
By Anne Petermann, Executive Director, Global Justice Ecology Project
I will start off this post with a few juicy quotes:
From Ron Sederoff, considered the “father of forest biotechnology:”
• On Synthetic Biology (that is, developing completely synthetic life forms): “If we think we know how something works, we should be able to build it.”
Dude, seriously? Life forms? Build them?
• On the use of biocontrols: “We can use genetic engineering to conserve endangered species through biocontrols. Like the mosquitoes, for example, that are being genetically engineered to fight malaria.”
Oh yeah, nothing could EVER go wrong with that…
• On where to plant GE trees: “just as the timber industry has done, in a large-scale on non-agricultural land.”
Non-agricultural land? In the Lumaco District of Chile, the standard for tree plantations has been putting them on the agricultural lands of Indigenous Mapuche communities by using financial incentives that force small farmers to grow trees instead of food—leading to 60% of Mapuche families in the region living in poverty, with 33% in extreme poverty.
Next a little analysis from the other very interesting presentations; one on GE poplar field trials in Belgium, and one by an ArborGen bigwig on their plans to commerically sell GE eucalyptus trees for plantations across the southern U.S.
“Science, Society and Biosafety of a field trial of transgenic biofuel poplars” by Wout Boergan –University of Ghent—Belgium
Wout gave a fascinating talk on Belgium’s attempts to create GMO low-lignin poplar trees for agrofuel (large-scale unsustainable biofuel) production.
He started by mocking Greenpeace for organizing protests against them. Then showed a photograph from another protest by Indigenous Peoples against Belgium’s GE tree test plots that occurred during a meeting of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues in New York City. It is worth noting that the photograph he used was taken by Global Justice Ecology Project Co-Director/ Strategist Orin Langelle…
IP Protest at the Belgian Mission in New York. Photo: Langelle/GJEP-GFC
As a result of these protests: the Belgian Minister decided not to allow the field trials to proceed. The reasons he gave for denying the permit:
• The use of antibiotic resistance markers in the GE trees;
• The lack of protocols for studying the impacts on soils;
• The lack of protocols for studying the impacts of the genetic modification on the trees themselves;
• 40 reactions from the public against GE trees.
Howeveer, Wout was proud to add that “we went to a higher court and got the decision reversed. We now have the most protected forest in the world.”
Their strategy for winning public acceptance of GE trees:
• Start with easy field trials
• Highlight the benefits we’ve seen from biotech crops
• Invite Opponents for Discussion
However, when GMO potatoes were brought in, the field trial was attacked in a public protest on May 29, 2011 (which destroyed 15% of the field trial), but according to Wout the protest backfired and there was a big backlash against the protesters. His reaction to film footage he showed of the public protest with the demonstrators getting savagely beaten by the police was, “the Police didn’t hit hard enough,” and called the activist group, “one of the most hated groups.” He concluded that the public protest against the GMO potato worked to the benefit of the GMO industry.
“Making Biotech Purpose-Grown Trees a Reality” by Maude Hinchee of ArborGen
(Hinchee, by the way, previously spent 18 years with Monsanto).
Here is a snapshot of her talk:
ArborGen is in the process of “developing commercially in the US” GE cold-tolerant eucalyptus trees.
GE eucalyptus are needed, she argued, because “the hardwood inventory is going down, and the natural regenerated stands are harder to access and more expensive. As a result, we have to import hardwood for pulp.”
Ah ha, so too much forest has been destroyed, and it grows too slowly anyway, so let’s create millions of acres of GE eucalyptus plantations across the US South—good plan…
“And now we are facing competitors for the feedstock–for electricity, biofuels, wood pellets–which is driving a 33% increase in hardwood demand in the US. Therefore we need trees that provide improved growth, processing, wood quality and shorter rotations.”
Yes, trees are being looked at to provide basically everything that fossil fuels are currently providing, causing a massive increase in demand for wood. But I’ve got news for you, the exponentially increasing demand for wood cannot be sustainably met. We have to DECREASE the demand—not increase it. And we need to ensure that the communities that depend on the world’s remaining forests are the ones that govern them—not the state or corporations or the World Bank. They have proven themselves wildly incompetant at protecting forests. Genetically engineered tree plantations will only make the matter worse for forests.
But Maude had other ideas. “For this reason, she said, referring to the lack of hardwoods, “ArborGen is developing freeze tolerant eucalyptus trees for use across the southern US” ArborGen’s eucalyptus plantation map on her powerpoint showed GE eucalyptus plantations growing from Texas to Florida and north to Arkansas and South Carolina.
ArborGen, she pointed out, is also involved in testing of non-GMO Urograndis eucalyptus hybrids in southern Florida. “But the pulp mills are not located in southern Florida, so we need cold-tolerant eucalyptus for other regions,” she insisted.
ArborGen, she said, is having some success with freeze tolerant eucalyptus down to 16°F (-8 to -9°C). At 48 months, these eucs also grew to 56 feet with 6.4 inch biomass yield. The GE eucalyptus trees in Alabama performed well. “We have submitted a petition for deregulation.”
And, why does Maude believe GE eucalyptus trees the best thing since sliced bread? Well according to her (and flying in the face of numeorus studies on eucalyptus from regions all over the world):
“Gene flow from biotech eucalyptus trees is unlikely” because of:
• Limited natural reproduction;
• Poor seed production (low seed set and viability of seeds);
• no natural vegetative propogation;
• no sexually competitive native species.
(Well, eucalyptus grandis trees are actually listed as an invasive pest in Florida and eucalyptus globulus are a major invasive problem in California, where they contribute to wildfires.)
As to where these will be grown, she replied: “the plantations will replace pine plantations and pasture land.”
Really? Tthe timber industry says they need to keep the pine plantations too. International Paper was quoted as saying the GE eucalyptus plantations would double the acreage covered in plantations in the Southern US from 42 to 84 million acres. And I’m afraid there is no way they will be able to accomplish this without wiping out more of the amazing biodiverse native hardwood forests in the south.
Let’s see, what other PR greenwash arguments for GE eucalyptus did she trot out?
• They use less water ‘per unit of biomass’ than other crops. “We anticipate they will need no irrigation.”
Actually, one of the states where ArborGen is testing their GE eucalyptus is Texas, which is under extreme drought conditions. Eucalyptus trees have a very deep tap root which allows them to access hard to reach ground water. Unfortunately, this trait means they can worsen droughts by drying up that ground water.
• They are very good for wildlife
Oh yes, non-native invasive, flammable vegetation is always good for native wildlife.
• They require less fertilization
Mature in under 7 years, yet don’t deplete soils?
• They require less herbicide application
I swear these points must have been written by ArborGen’s public relations department. They are totally contradictory to the documented impacts of eucalyptus plantations.
But not to worry. The Institute for Forest Biotechnology (IFB) is on the case, fervently developing voluntary standards for industry to enable them to certify GE tree plantations as sustainable. Currently neither of the global certification schemes will certify GE trees.
On this point, Adam Costanza of the Institute of Forest Biotechnology argued, “We need to fight for what is right, good and responsible” and “ultimately, we want to see biotech trees used responsibly.” (Good thing his presentation was listed under the Biosafety section…)
The IFB has even developed a book of “responsible use principles.” It is amazing how they have determined how to “responsibly use” GE trees, even though almost no risk assessments have been done. Their partners can be found at forestbiotech.org/partners.html.
Over all, biosafety concerns were largely ignored at this conference. There were only four presentations on the topic (and only four people applied for it), and two of those presentations were basically about how to get around biosafety concerns so GE trees can get out there and commercialized.
(sigh…)
The good news is that the next IUFRO Tree Biotechnology Conference is scheduled to take place in 2013 in Asheville, NC. THAT should be a fun one!
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Wrap Up Blog Post from IUFRO Tree Biotechnology 2011 Conference
Arraial d’Ajuda, Bahia, Brazil (Part I of II)
by Anne Petermann, Executive Director, Global Justice Ecology Project
In this blog post and it’s follow up part two, I discuss the main presentations of IUFRO’s Tree Biotechnology Conference which occurred in the final stretch of the conference. Steve Strauss, tree geneticist and industry proponent, gave two presentations during this time, which I describe below. They provide an excellent substrate for developing the analysis as to why genetically engineered trees (GE trees) are a bad idea.
Steve Strauss Defends GE Trees at the UN CBD in Rome. Photo: Langelle/GJEP-GFC
Steve Strauss Presentation #1: “Field Trials of GM trees in the US and a Peek at Global Regulatory Burdens (“in the eyes of scientists”)
Strauss started this presentation on regulation of GM trees by stating that regulation in the US is problematic because there are no laws specifically governing GM trees.
He then provided a little background on GE tree field trials in the US:
Over 1995-1999 there were 100 field trials in the US
Over 2000-2004, there were 200
Over 2005-2009, there were 300
From 2010-now, there are 50 (so far—on track with previous rates)
In 2007 there were 60 GE poplar field trials, 40 GE eucalyptus and 60 pine
In 2011, poplar and eucalyptus are the leaders
The average size of the the field trials in the US:
GE poplar: 15 acres
GE eucalyptus: 30 acres
He explained why the GE eucalyptus test plots are so much larger by pointing out that “the GE eucalyptus are pre-commercial, which is why ArborGen is taking a careful look at them in large plots.”
He further explained, “In the US, once it [a GE tree] is deregulated [commercially released], its not tracked any further, unlike Europe.”
Which is one of the reasons that Global Justice Ecology Project and the STOP GE Trees Campaign are working so hard to stop the deregulation of GE trees in the US—because any social or ecological impacts of the large-scale release of these non-native genetically engineered tree clones would be tracked only by industry—if at all. The impacts of opening Pandora’s Box would be unmonitored.
Strauss’s next presentation happened during the section of the conference dealing with biosafety, oddly enough. It was called, Transgenic Biotechnology in Forestry: What a Long Strange Trip It’s Been (I think Jerry Garcia would be rolling over in his grave…)
Here are a few select tidbits from Steve’s opening remarks:
1) The problem of gene flow is a huge problem.
Yes, right. Got that.
2) Scientists are giving out too much information for the public to understand/digest it.
Really? The whole notion of “Confidential Business Information” when it comes to companies manufacturing GMOs, is that they don’t have to publicly disclose much information for fear someone might steal it or use it in some way that is detrimental to the interests of the corporation. Too LITTLE information is the problem.
3) There is no real difference between GMO and non-GMO. Its about the technique, not the transgenic aspect of the process.
Ummm… Huh? As renowned geneticist David Suzuki points out in the film A Silent Forest: The Growing Threat, Genetically Engineered Trees, “If we take a gene out of one species and put it into an entirely unrelated species—we’ve never done that before and it’s absolutely bad science to say that we can use [traditional breeding] to predict what will happen with [genetic engineering], it’s just lousy science.”
Strauss went on to describe why genetic engineering makes him happy:
• The history of GE crops has been very positive–except for maybe a little too much RoundUp.
A little too much RoundUp? Try herbicide resistant weeds taking over and forcing farmers to rely on increasingly toxic weed killers. Oh, and the productivity levels touted by corporations like Monsanto about their GE crops haven’t panned out either…
• Virus resistant papaya in Hawaii has been a huge success. “GM papaya has made it easy to be an organic papaya farmer in Hawaii, but I haven’t seen any thanks from them yet.”
Whoa… Maybe this is because organic papaya farmers in Hawaii were virtually wiped out by GMO papaya, which contaminated over 50% of non-GMO papaya on the big island of Hawaii. In addition, while the transgenic trait was successful at knocking down the ringspot virus (at least for now), it also had the unanticipated consequence of making the GMO papayas susceptible to black spot fungus requiring applications of fungicide.
• We have seen unexpected mutants, but the occurrence has been low.
Oh, good. Only a few unexpected mutants. I feel SO much better…
• RoundUp ready trees grow 20% faster
Didn’t we just discuss the whole thing about too much RoundUp not being a good idea?
He next described the anti-GMO movement starting in the 1990s, and explained that it was disruptive to society. (He lost me on that one…)
In this vein, he suggested reading the paper by Ron Herring called “Persistent Global Cognitive Rift on Biotechnology.” (Sounds like someone has large word envy…)
He went on to call the anti-biotech movement “crazy” with “no credibility”.
Following that, he recited the history of eco-vandalism against GE tree research which started 1999 with the destruction of low-lignin GE poplars in England, which was the same year that IUFRO had a forest biotechnology conference in Oxford. There was a newspaper article published at the time called “Frankenstein’s Forest.” He then discussed the vandalism against the field trials and labs in the pacific northwest in 2001, and the public protest we did against GE trees at a conference on the topic at Skamania Lodge in Washington state. He claims anti-GMO activists were invited to participate but declined. I don’t remember getting an invitation…
He next complained that the regulatory system is a jungle, and is keeping a lot of research down. He accompanied this point with a slide of his “Forest Biotechnology: Strangled at Birth” article that he wrote following the 2008 UN Convention on Biological Diversity meeting in Bonn in which he complains about the success of Global Justice Ecology Project winning a decision by the UN body cautioning countries about use of GE trees. He said these international regulations [which are strictly voluntary, by the way] are making national regulations harder.
Then he mentioned an action alert that had been sent out on Tuesday July 1st which caused him to get, “hundreds of spam emails jamming up his in box” and put a quote from it up on the screen:
“There is the real possibility that new genes spliced into GE trees will irreversibly contaminate forests, or that the trees themselves will invade wild forests. Forests on private land, national forests or national parks, will be changed forever.”
“Gene flow,” he reiterated, “is a big problem. Genes will get out. There is no question, pollen moves far.”
Alright then, if that’s the case, shouldn’t GE trees NOT be released into the environment, because they will irreversibly contaminate forests with unpredictable impacts?
Wrong. Strauss continued, “we need to engineer genetic containment to deal with it.” Then he asked, “is imperfect sterility useful?” And answered his question by saying, “we can reasonably safely deploy imperfectly sterile trees, even if the trees have been engineered with traits that make them more competitive than native trees.” He conceded, however that, “Ultimately, we will need a failsafe containment system, but this will take time.”
Right. But in the meantime, let’s barrel ahead with commercial large-scale release of these impossible to contain GMO trees, pretending we know what the [bleep] we’re doing.
Then he made a brief reference to the GMO rice legal outcome (see our blog post on the topic), and said that the threat of contamination will lead to lawsuits that will stop development.
One would hope so…
He then gave his interpretation of the way the GMO issue plays out in the mind of the public:
Anti-GMO vs. GMO corporations =
• Left/ socialist vs. Right/ Capitalist
• Transparency & Openness vs. Secrecy & Competition
• Open Source/ Sharing vs. Patents and Private Property
• Non-profit vs. Corporate/ profit-making
• Natural vs. Techno.
“The common message is: ‘I don’t like Monsanto,’” he said, to big audience laughter.
But, he said, this perception is wrong. Science is not a capitalist, closed model, it is a social and democratic model.
Yeah, right. Unfortunately, what he failed to mention is that science is often bought and paid for by corporations that plan to use it to make lots of profits, and that this science tends to say whatever that corporation wants it to. As one graduate student from the Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul explained, “[Our] working hypothesis is that GMO and non-GMO eucalyptus trees are exactly the same except for the GMO traits.”
And guess what? All of his slides had the name and logo for “Futuragene” on them…
Finally Strauss concluded with “In a nutshell, it’s a religious/ideological issue,” showing an issue of the publication ECO that Global Justice Ecology Project had co-produced with the CBD Alliance at the 2008 UN Convention on Biological Diversity in Bonn calling for the total ban on genetically engineered trees globally.
He then segued into the Forest Stewardship Council’s refusal to certify GE trees because there is not enough science.
He used these two points to illustrate his disdain for the ‘precautionary principle’ [that is, the principle that a product or a technology should not be deployed until proved safe]. He said, “The road to hell is paved with good intentions.” And, “The perfect is the enemy of the good.”
Stay tuned for IUFRO Tree Biotechnology 2011 Wrap Up II Coming Soon to a blog near you.
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Blog Post for Friday: Eucalyptus Time!
From the Tree Biotechnology 2011 Conference in Arraial d’Ajuda, Bahia, Brazil
Eucalyptus plantation. Photo: Petermann/ GJEP-GFC
By Anne Petermann, Executive Director, Global Justice Ecology Project
This morning was devoted to eucalyptus. Hybrid eucalyptus followed by genetically engineered eucalyptus. There was an interesting tension between researchers working with non-GMO clonal hybridization techniques of eucalyptus—such as we saw on our Veracel field trip on Wednesday—and those using transgenics; in other words, inserting genes from other species into the eucalyptus to try to get it to express very specific traits more quickly.
The second speaker of the day was from Brazil and explained in great detail the history of eucalyptus hybridization in Brazil, toward greater production. This process had begun in the 60s, he explained, when they were getting 6 tons of pulp per hectare per year; to the projected production for 2015 when they expect to get 16 tons of pulp per hectare per year.
But in addition to increasing production, they are also altering wood quality and wood density, and even breeding for freeze tolerance. The speaker, Teotonio de Assis seemed quite proud of the achievements made with these hybridization techniques over the past decades. Indeed, a full-grown tree in seven years is something (something very destructive, but we’ll get into that later).
But then came Ziv Shani of Futuragene Ltd. Futuragene is based in Brazil and Israel.
His presentation was called Eucalyptus Time! and emphasized why NOW is the time for genetically engineered eucalyptus.
First he started with the statistics. There are currently 19.6 million hectares of eucalyptus plantations worldwide. Brazil leads the pack with 4.7 million of those hectares, followed by India with 4.3, China with 2.6, South Africa with .58 and Thailand with .5 million hectares.
And because industry has perfected the standardization of the production methods for propogating clones of eucalyptus, now it is the time to genetically engineer them. “The time is ripe!” he said enthusiastically.
And in this way, he expounded, eucalyptus can be developed for specific “off-takes.” By this he meant different products such as ethanol, bioenergy, bioproducts, etc.
Then he showed two slides, one, a quaint pastoral painting depicting some people lying around in a field, which was supposed to represent organic farming practices. The other was serious, mechanized, industrious and represented “modern” industrial agriculture. In 2011, he argued, we have 7 billion people on the planet. “We need industry. We need large scale agriculture; AND we need to keep living on this planet.”
We need, he said, “to enhance the product while preserving today’s resource for tomorrow.”
He apparently has not seen the analysis of the long-term downward impacts on productivity of the so-called “green revolution” and the use of biotechnology in agriculture. Or about the “new menace” of herbicide tolerant weeds, resulting from the repeated heavy applications of Monsanto’s RoundUp on their roundup ready GMO crops—now requiring farmers to use even larger amounts of more toxic herbicides (just as was predicted by silly anti-GMO naysayers like us fifteen or twenty years ago…).
La Via Campesina has done some excellent work pointing out that small-scale organic and natural farming methods can feed a lot more people than the worn out soils of the GMO and industrial monocultures which require heavy inputs of petroleum-based fertilizers (which also contribute to climate change, by the way) and other chemicals.
But he had not heard of any of this, or if he had, he was keeping it to himself, so he continued, this time dragging out some of the tired old arguments about GMO trees that we have been countering for a decade.
1) Increasing the productivity of eucalyptus trees will grow more wood on less land (ArborGen’s motto) and therefore protect native forests. No it won’t. It will mean that eucalyptus is even more profitable, creating increased incentives for landowners to convert their forests to eucalyptus. Plantations grow where native ecosystems once stood—whether forest or grassland. As demand for wood increases (like for the ethanol, bioenergy and bioproducts he mentioned earlier), the forests will be cut down and replaced with “high productivity” plantations.
2) GMO trees can reduce the need for chemicals. Sure. You don’t need to apply insecticides to insect-resistant GMO trees, because the entire tree is a pesticide. Every bit of it, from the leaves to the roots to the pollen. Oh yeah, and the insecticide then enters and wreaks havoc in the soils, gets into the water, and blows around in the wind in the pollen, so that wildlife and people can inhale it and have the pesticide directly enter their bloodstream by way of their lungs. Good plan.
3) GMO trees will help us with climate adaptation. Nothing will help our forests with climate adaptation except halting climate disruption by curtailing the emission of greenhouse gases. And ensuring that native forests are maintained in large interconnected tracts so that species can migrate and adapt as needed to the changing climate. Plantations are not in the equation. In fact, plantations store only about ¼ the carbon of native forests, so expanding plantations actually worsens climate change.
But as our intrepid tree engineer pointed out, “Industrial production cannot wait 100 years for evolution.”
And just so you don’t worry, Futuragene is working in partnership with the “Tree Biosafety and Genomics Research Cooperative” at Oregon State University. Well, if its got “biosafety” in the title, it must be okay, right?
Wrong.
The word “biosafety” was added to assuage public criticism and after several GMO tree trials in the Pacific Northwest were vandalized. It used to be just the plain old “Tree Genetic Engineering Research Cooperative” Or ‘Tree Jerk,’ as it was affectionately called.
The leader of this enterprise will be presenting tonight and tomorrow, so I will wait to tell you more about the history of Tree Jerk.
Back to Mr. Futuragene. One interesting factoid that he pulled out was that the entire research process just to identify and perfect one GMO tree trait is around $20-$40 million. And for this reason, he explained, “partnering” with academia (i.e. using unpaid or poorly paid graduate students) to make the venture more economical is critical.
And his final bold assertion: “The future sustainable forest will be a biotech forest!”
Wanna bet…
This was when there were rumblings in the crowd from the non-GMO eucalyptus breeders who took offense to his casual dismissal of their craft.
Kinda like watching the right wing Republicans argue with the leaders of the Tea Party…
Whether GMO or not, eucalyptus plantations are destructive. But rapidly increasing their productivity (and hence their need for fertilizers, ground water, herbicides, etc) will cause even more severe impacts. And engineering them to be cold tolerant (such as they are attempting in the US) will enable their production in new regions meaning the loss of even more forests at exactly the time when we need our forests more than ever.
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Photo Essay from the Tree Biotechnology 2011 Conference Field Trip Hosted by Veracel
On Wednesday, July 29th, around 200 participants divided into 4 groups toured various facilities owned by pulp company Veracel. This photo essay explains what we learned on the field trip.
Photos and commentary by Anne Petermann, Executive Director, Global Justice Ecology Project (Exception: the last two photos are by GJEP Co-Director/Strategist Orin Langelle)
First Stop: Veracel Forest Preserve where children and visitors are “educated” about the importance of eucalyptus pulp and the “greenness” of Veracel. Note that the human figure in the poster is exhibiting total dominance over the trees.
On the way into the forest preserve, children and visitors are presented with a native forest monster and representations of some of the scary wildlife that live in forests.
Veracel forest monster
Scary forest raptor
On the way through the 6,000 hectare forest preserve (80% of which is forested), a mixture of formerly logged lands and primary forest, participants were treated to a canopy rope bridge and photo shoots with 4 large trees we encountered on the path. Most of the forest contained very young trees.
canopy rope bridge
one of the four big trees
The primary Mata Atlantica forest once stretched over much of the eastern edge of Brazil. Large swaths of it have been eliminated and replaced with eucalyptus plantations. Veracel took us next to the tree nursery where they propogate the 17 million eucalyptus clones they produce annually. Henry Ford would have been proud. The nursery was a very efficient assembly line operation.
Taking Cuttings to propagate new clones
"Clonal Garden"
Assembly line for clones 1
Assembly line for clones 2
Assembly line for clones 3
All the happy clones together
The next step for these clones, of course, is to be transformed into large-scale monoculture eucalyptus plantations. Veracel harvests 11,000 of these 7 year old eucalyptus trees every day for their pulp mill. Virtually the entire timbering operation is heavily mechanized to employ the fewest people possible, and uses an assortment of chemicals, from a petroleum-based hydrophilic polymer that is planted with the seedlings, to glyphosate-based herbicides that are applied to keep out competition plants, to the insecticides used to control “pests.” In this way, Veracel can maximize its potential for profits.
The eucalyptus plantation
The mechanical harvester rapidly gobbles up the trees
The jaws of the harvester up close and personal
This employee, clearly bored, awaits his cue to show the visitors how the mechanized planter works
After a couple of tries, they were finally successful in showing how the mechanized planter works
The result. Note the petroleum-based polymer gel at the base of the seedling
Despite several quotes from Rachel Carson, John Muir, Emerson and other naturalists posted at the nature preserve, the plantations rely heavily on chemical applications. The guide informed me that the trees get three applications of toxic herbicide over their 7 year life span. As a result, the plantations of non-native trees are devoid of understory plants or biodiversity. Social movements in Brazil call them “green deserts” for this reason.
the ground beneath the plantation is barren of other life forms
Rachel Carson quote in the Veracel forest preserve. Too bad they don't listen to her.
The ultimate purpose for the clones:
massive pile of eucalyptus chips at the Veracel pulp mill
From standing trees to boiled, bleached pulp in one day
The reason Veracel needs to greenwash their image: their giant stinking, polluting pulp mill
The stench of the pulp mill. "It smells like money".
Veracel's vision for the future: Make more money!
One of the obstacles, according to Veracel, of their achieving maximum productivity, is people breaking into their plantations. On the way to the plantation, we passed what appeared to be an MST (Landless Workers’ Movement) encampment–black plastic shelters with a red MST flag flying high over them. Indeed, elsewhere in Brazil, the MST as well as indigenous Tupinikim and Guarani populations, have taken over eucalyptus plantations and found better uses for the land. In the case of the MST, as encampments for landless peasants. In the case of the Indigenous Peoples, as a retaking of their ancestral lands from which they were forcibly removed when the timber company was given the land for plantations. The cases we had previously documented were on Aracruz Cellulose land in Espirito Santo, but it seems to be occuring here in Bahia as well. Below are photos from the encampments in Esprito Santo:
MST encampment in former eucalyptus plantation. The sign says "Eucalyptus plantations are not forests". Photo: Langelle/GJEP-GFC
Indigenous community re-takes traditional lands, removes eucalyptus plantation. Photo: Langelle/GJEP-GFC
Eucalyptus plantations have been such a smashing success in other parts of the world, that now GE tree company ArborGen is trying to engineer them to be cold-tolerant so that the joy of eucalyptus plantations can be spread to new and untrammeled lands. In the United States they hope to sell half a billion GE cold tolerant eucalyptus trees annually for plantations from Texas to Florida. They’re invasive? Flammable? Dry up ground water and worsen droughts? So? What’s your point. They will make a lot of money for a few powerful people.
To learn more or to sign our petition to the US Department of Agriculture opposing GE eucalyptus in the US, click here
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Filed under Biodiversity, Climate Change, GE Trees, Genetic Engineering, Greenwashing, Latin America-Caribbean, Pollution, Posts from Anne Petermann
