Can GMO trees save our forests? - Salon.com

Can GMO trees save our forests? - Salon.com

 Their key intention was to highlight concerns over the United States
government’s pending approval of a genetically modified eucalyptus tree.
The proposal, by the South Carolina-based company ArborGen, is
currently being considered by the US Department of Agriculture. If
approved, it would be the first time a transgenic tree is authorized for
commercial production in the country.

While the debate over GE
plants (or genetically modified organisms, as they are usually called)
has been focused on the environmental and socioeconomic consequences of
transgenic food crops and fish, in the past decade the agricultural
biotech industry has been gradually venturing into another frontier –
forestry.

Genetically modified strains of trees like eucalyptus,
pines, poplars, and fruit trees are being tested in hundreds of trial
plots across the world, including the United States. Although the idea
of transgenic trees isn’t exactly new (scientists have been testing
different versions of GE trees since the 1980s), few have ever made it
to market. The two notable exceptions are the ringspot virus-resistant
GE papaya trees grown commercially in Hawai‘i and more than one million
insect-resistant poplar trees that were planted in northern China in the
early 2000s – a large-scale commercial experiment of which few records
were kept.

The impetus to create different types of transgenic
trees that can grow faster, have more biomass, resist pests and
herbicides, and have low lignin – a chemical compound that promotes
rigidity – is largely driven by the commercial forestry industry that
grows trees for timber, paper, fiber, and, lately, as a raw material for
bioenergy. A recent boom in biofuel energy has spurred demand for trees
that can feed new wood-pellet power plants, biomass incinerators, and
cellulosic biofuel plants.

So the plantation industry, as ArborGen
says in a promotional video, wants “a tree that can do more” and “work
harder.” GE trees, supporters of the technology argue, can produce more
wood per acre, faster, and can therefore relieve the pressure on the
world’s natural forests, mitigate global warming, and, at the same time,
fuel economic development. Boosters also say the technology could help
bring iconic species like the American chestnut back from the brink of
extinction.

The US South – one of the largest pulp and
paper-producing regions in the world, accounting for about 15 percent of
the paper products produced worldwide – has become one the key testing
grounds for these new kinds of trees. Since 2010 ArborGen has been
field-testing its genetically engineered freeze-tolerant eucalyptus on
28 open-air sites across seven southern states, from Florida to South
Carolina. “We selected eucalyptus as it has a high commercial and
environmental value in terms of increased per acre productivity to
support the growing global demand for sustainable wood, fiber, and
energy supplies,” ArborGen spokesperson Cathy Quinn wrote to me in an
email.

Modifying trees, which are integral parts of wild ecosystems, is a knotty issue.