The Orchard of Dr Moreau...You might be surprised to find the corporations that brought you genetically engineered foods holding a picnic. But you’re not on the guest list. The biotech industry has been understandably quiet about the latest phase of its ‘genetic revolution’. Now they plan to take over the world's forests and replace them with a regimented line of genetically engineered (GE) trees. Rod Harbinson investigates.
Big deals are being struck between forest and biotech corporations. By replacing plantations the world over with GE trees some forestry companies hope to cash in on supposed benefits such as faster growth rates. They also have a cynical eye on the proposed system of tradable 'carbon credits', where emissions debit your account and credits are given for environmentally friendly deeds such as tree-planting. While continuing to pollute, they can balance the scales by planting GE trees. So, no need to change bad habits, just buy into forestry. Then twist the arm of those making world trade rules so that all countries have to allow GE trees.
“Progress is quite significant,” says Malcolm Campbell of the Oxford Forestry Institute and organiser of the recent Forest Biotech '99 conference. “We are at the stage of field trials and poplar will probably be the first commercial GE tree in 5-10 years’ time.”
However, according to GE Free Forests (GEFF), a coalition of concerned groups, this silent conspiracy could spell silence for the hum and birdsong of our natural forests. As molecular biologist Viola Sampson, a member of the Women's Environmental Network explains: "Our forests are already under severe strain world-wide. Genetic engineering of trees endangers these rich centres of biological diversity". Scientists think that by the time you have finished reading this article, another species will have become extinct, victim to our gluttony for forest products - particularly paper.
FRANKEN-FORESTERS
In April, Monsanto teamed up with two of the world's biggest forest and paper corporations, International Paper and the Westvaco Corporation. The New Zealand company Fletcher Challenge Forests got in on the deal too - as they own the all-important patents on newly developed genes which will give the consortium a near monopoly on GE trees. Having sunk $60 million into the venture they hope to clean up by 2002, initially by replacing the 6 million or so acres they own with their new GE tree 'products'.
In commercial forestry the global scenario in recent years has been massive felling of rich native forests - to be replaced by invasive foreign plantation species such as eucalyptus. To the undiscerning, a forest is a forest, giving corporations their much wanted “greenie points”. Look behind the greenwash and you will find companies such as Shell working to engineer trees with new traits. Why? It may soon be possible to horse-trade 'carbon credits' gained from planting GE trees.
CARBON CREDENTIALS
“There is big money to be made,” says Charlie Kronick, Director of the Climate Action Network UK. “If there is a tradable carbon credit, people will be scrambling to get in on the trading.” Already the World Bank has seized upon the emergence of 'Carbon Reduction Units' by proposing a global market - a concept being quickly adopted by the world's financial exchanges. Kronick says the issue of tradable carbon credits is receiving intense support from countries such as the U.S., New Zealand and Canada, also at the forefront of developments in GE forestry.
The paper industry is clear that it wants to create a tree that is tailored to its end use. No more messing about with the hindrances that nature puts in the way. It must grow faster, be tolerant of herbicides and contain less lignin. Lignin is a problem to the paper industry as large amounts of water, energy and toxic chemicals are required to get rid of it and the process produces much pollution. So in one sense the claim of pursuing environmental aims is valid. However, it is worth also considering how a tree will cope with a reduction in what Campbell terms "the intermolecular glue that holds the cells of the tree together".
AGROFOREST DESERTS
Trees are hardy beings, outliving all others and are masters of withstanding immense stresses from storms, drought, parasites and plagues. According to Sampson: “To reduce trees' lignin production makes them vulnerable to storms, feeding insects and increases the speed that wood rots.
These new low lignin traits cannot be contained and will spread into natural forests, putting their survival at risk. Genetic modification is another technofix intensification of agriculture and forestry. The problems created by over consumption of paper need to be tackled at source, not allowed to increase.”
Faster growing GE trees pose their own problems by out-smarting the natural competition. Water, nutrients and light would be snapped up (as is already known to be the case with eucalyptus when planted outside Australasia) leaving natural trees to gradually die out along with the host of insects, plants and fungi which rely upon them. In turn, birds and animals would find little joy, let alone food. Those that pulled through against the odds would fall victim to herbicide weedkiller, liberally applied to resistant GE forests. The result - believe opponents - a sanitised silent forest, cleansed of natural life.
MUNCHABLE MORSELS?
With all the uncertainty surrounding risk assessment of food crops, it is worth asking how this applies to trees. Edible tree products, such as bark, nuts and fruit, will raise the same health concerns as are presently being expressed about GE foods. Current field trials of crops are grown and studied for their effects on the wider environment for one season at a time. Trees take many years to mature. During this period the expression of the inserted foreign genes may change. As geneticist and biologist Dr Ricarda Steinbrecher explains: “Expression of genes is closely linked to the lifecycle of trees - stress can have an impact on the gene expression. Over prolonged periods of time the tree may switch off the transgene expression and then decide to turn it on later - it’s like playing Russian roulette with nature.”
Malcolm Campbell confirms that "trees tend to be good outcrossers", meaning that they are particularly adept at spreading their genes. As a result, "You're looking at a very wild population compared with food crops". But he refuses to be drawn on whether this means that the transgenes within GE trees are likely to spread about too. “In the current political climate I'm already sticking my neck out.”
Concerns about the outcrossing of genes into the wild led genetics activists to mount a New Year’s Eve raid on a plot of GE apple trees in 1997. The trees, engineered to be disease and insect resistant by the University of Derby, were destroyed by removing the bark. This year, AstraZeneca's GE poplars, the only other GE tree trial in the UK were destroyed by activists in July.
THE ‘GLOBAL FREE LOGGING AGREEMENT’
GEFF’s concerns extend to current negotiations in the World Trade Organisation (WTO) for a ‘Global Free Logging Agreement’. If passed later in the year, the measures could lead to the outlawing of current forest protection schemes, such as labelling sustainable wood and banning timber imports of dubious origin.
GEFF fears that the agreement being touted by industry will dismantle all barriers to trade in forest products and create a backdoor for GE trees to spread uncontested.
This would reinforce other measures already in place within the WTO. Under the agreement on Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), all countries must put in place legislation to ensure the "effective" protection of plant varieties. With TRIPS coming up for review this year, industrialised countries are piling pressure on countries in the South to accept gene patents. Patent applications on GE trees are already spiralling upward.
The Sanitary and Phytosanitary Standards (SPS) agreement regulates transboundary movement of biological goods. It limits the rights of national governments to impose import restrictions on goods such as food that may be contaminated, or timber that may carry diseases such as Dutch Elm disease. In addition, the 'precautionary principle' is not acceptable under the agreement. Fearing import restrictions on its GE crops, the US threatened to resort to the agreement in order to scupper the 'biosafety protocol'. As a mechanism to encourage unhindered global trade, SPS could ensure free movement of GE tree varieties.
While concern over GE food and crops is forefront in our minds, the genetic engineering revolution that industry is orchestrating for the 21st century is designed to capitalise on every aspect of the living world. The world’s forests, the richest sources of biodiversity on earth, are the next target for corporate manipulation.
Contact GEFF for more information:
Email: geffcoalition@hotmail.com
Mail: c/o Women's Environmental Network 87 Worship St. London
EC2A 2BE
Profile of a corporate forestry giant -
International Paper -
International Paper (IP) is the biggest forest and paper products corporation. It has revenues of $19.5 billion and employs 80,000 globally. During 1997 and 1998 IP spent over $4 million lobbying regulators. It has representatives on the US government's industry sector advisory committees for lumber, wood and paper products.
IP's board of directors have diverse interests. Chairman John Dillon, is also director of Caterpillar and other directors are linked to Chrysler, Texaco, Ashland Oil and SmithKline Beecham. IP directors sit on Clinton's advisory committee on trade policy and negotiations, and the Overseas Development Council. IP’s game plan for GE trees is integrally linked to the oil, car and biotech industries
The scale of its operation is immense, soon IP will own 7.5 million acres of forest land in the US. Through subsidiary Carter Holt Harvey, it has a stake in 800,000 acres of Radiata Pine plantation in New Zealand and 1.2 million acres of forest in Chile.
The company's predatory nature and commitment to ecological vandalism are summed up in IP director, Edward Kobacker's letter to Premier Zedillo of Mexico after the 1994 economic collapse, "If Mexico is to be globally competitive, there should not be limits on the size of privately owned forest…and the country should legislate incentives to promote the establishment of commercial plantations". IP now plans a 50,000 hectare plantation in Chiapas with numerous other projects in the pipeline.
Source: The Global Timber Titans - George Draffan