Demand to USDA-Halt field releases of GE Trees+

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE March 10, 2005

CONTACT: Alyx Perry, Southern Forests Network, 828-277-9008
Anne Petermann or Orin Langelle, Global Justice Ecology Project, 802-482-2689
Neil Carman, Sierra Club, 512-472-1767

Campaign Demands USDA Halt field releases of Genetically Engineered Trees

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

"The information that has come out in the past year since our last national meeting makes the need for a ban on the release of GE trees into the environment more urgent than ever," stated Neil Carman, a plant scientist with the Sierra Club's Genetic Engineering Committee.

"Traits being engineered into trees include insect resistance, herbicide resistance, reduced lignin, sterility and faster growth, among others," stated Anne Petermann, Co-Director of the Vermont-based Global Justice Ecology Project. "When these traits escape into native forests, which they inevitably will, native forests will be irreversibly devastated," she continued.

"The genetic engineering of annual crops has rapidly led to the widespread contamination of non-engineered crops with GE traits like insect resistance," said Brian Tokar, Director of the Biotechnology Project at the Institute for Social Ecology. "GE trees can live for decades, are very closely related to their wild relatives and can spread their pollen for hundreds of miles. The potential for global contamination of native forests by GE trees is extremely dangerous. They must not be allowed into the environment," he continued.

"Most of the current field tests of GE trees in the U.S. are occurring in the South, which is where we expect future production efforts to be focused. Forestland owners and our solid wood products industry will be the big losers when genetically engineered trees contaminate woodlots. Because GE trees are being specifically engineered for low lignin content, they are useless for saw timber. Once those genetic characteristics spread, the South will lose its edge as the world's largest timber producing region, and the destructive trend of increasing pulpwood production will continue to plague forestry in the South," said Alyx Perry, Coordinator of the Southern Forests Network.

There are currently hundreds of open-air field trials of GE trees around the United States, mainly in the Southeast, Northwest, and upper Midwest. Because the research is focused on native tree species, any of these field trials may lead to the contamination of native forests, which will themselves become contaminants in a never-ending cycle.

Members of the Campaign agree that a ban on the release of GE trees into the environment--including test plots--is the only way to ensure that this endless cycle of contamination can be prevented.

The Stop GE Trees Campaign includes the Sierra Club, Rainforest Action Network, Dogwood Alliance, Polaris Institute, Global Justice Ecology Project, WildLaw, Southern Forests Network, Institute for Social Ecology Biotechnology Project, ForestEthics, Klamath-Siskiyou Wildlands Center, Forest Stewards Guild, Northwest Resistance Against Genetic Engineering and GE Free Maine.
** Fact sheet appended below **

FACTS ABOUT GE TREES

* Corporations and scientists are engineering trees with no regard to the dramatic impacts that they will have on ecosystems, society, and private landowners.

* There has been an unscientific lack of rational debate about the fundamental questions involved in engineering organisms. Scientists have not made a case that there is a pressing need for this technology.

* Gene drift in agriculture has occurred rapidly. A recent study by the Union of Concerned Scientists concluded that seeds of traditional varieties of corn, soybeans, and canola are pervasively contaminated with low levels of DNA sequences derived from transgenic varieties. Transgenically derived DNA was detected in 50 percent of the corn, 50 percent of the soybean, and 83 percent of the canola varieties tested. These crops have been in production for less than a decade.

* Gene drift in forests can be expected to occur more rapidly because tree pollen travels on a much larger scale and trees permeate the landscape at higher frequency than farm crops. Modeling done by Duke University has indicated that pollen from trees can be expected to travel up to 1,000 kilometers. As soon as these trees start producing pollen, there's no way to stop gene drift from occurring.

* Engineered traits such as sterility, lack of lignin, and pesticide production in pine and poplar trees will result in long-term impacts in the wild. Gene drift will lead to irreversible changes in forest ecosystems and will affect forests ability to support wildlife, provide clean air and water, and produce valuable forest products.

* There have been cases in which GE plants still in trial stage have caused contamination.

* U.S. courts have decided that when a landowner's property is contaminated by GE seed or pollen that the affected crop becomes the property of the corporation that developed the crop

* Contamination of forests will have extreme consequences for forest land owners because it will lead to the violation of property rights and economic losses.

* GE in native tree species is focused on reducing the production of lignin (the material that makes timber strong and rigid). This makes GE trees easier to use for papermaking, but useless as sawtimber, which provides the most profitable market for landowners. Genetic contamination will make some forests incapable of producing marketable timber, while impairing trees' natural defenses against insects and disease.

* Farmers of GE crops (or anyone whose land has become contaminated) cannot save seed for next year's planting. Will corporations seek to own the processes of natural regeneration in the forest?

* GE trees will result in increased corporate control and concentration in the forest products industry, and will add to the decline in the economic and social benefits that landowners, workers, and communities reap from our forest industry.

* The industry argues that we will and should be increasing consumption of paper and wood products without consideration of the need to reduce wasteful consumption or the fundamental carrying capacity of our natural resources.

* There is a lack if scientific honesty about the unavoidable occurrence of gene drift, the true impacts of GE in agriculture, and the impossibility of assessing the long-term impacts of gene drift. In fact, there has been only negligible effort to even begin documenting the risks associated with this technology.

* The public's interest is last on the agenda for the industry. GE trees are already growing in the field, and the industry has now arrived at the question of how to "sell" this technology to the public and landowners. There has been no genuine effort to address what is best for society as a whole.

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Co-Director/Global Justice Ecology Project

Coordinator/Stop GE Trees Campaign

P.O. Box 412
Hinesburg, VT 05461 U.S.
+1.802.482.2689 ph/fax
+1.802.578.6980 mobile
<langelle@sover.net>

http://www.globaljusticeecology.org

The Stop Genetically Engineered Trees Campaign includes the Sierra Club, Rainforest Action Network, Dogwood Alliance, Polaris Institute, Global Justice Ecology Project, WildLaw, Southern Forests Network, Institute for Social Ecology Biotechnology Project, ForestEthics, Klamath-Siskiyou Wildlands Center, Forest Stewards Guild, Northwest Resistance Against Genetic Engineering and GE Free Maine.

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