Moratorium on all GM Trees and Ban on GM Forest Trees
ISIS Press Release 18/02/07
http://www.i-sis.org.uk/Moratorium_on_all_GM_Trees.php
Genetically modified (GM) trees have all the hazards of GM crops only worse, GM forest trees, in particular, are the ultimate threat to people and planet
Prof. Joe Cummins and Dr. Mae-Wan Ho update the ecological and health risks since ISIS' last comprehensive review ( GM Forest Trees - The Ultimate Threat , SiS 26)
A version of this article was submitted on behalf of ISIS to the Secretariat of the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity 26 November 2006 in support of a moratorium on the environmental release of GM trees. Please circulate widely.
Genetically modified trees without caution
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There is growing pressure to commercialise the numerous GM tree species that have been modified with a variety of transgenes. One major reason is that GM trees have been proposed for plantations on the mistaken assumption that they can offset carbon emissions, and more so, qualify for subsidies under the Kyoto Protocol's Clean Development
Mechanism . At the same time, rising worldwide demand for biofuels has opened up an opportunity for proponents to rescue genetically modified (GM) crops from chronic market failure by promoting them as 'energy' crops (see Box 1).
Unfortunately, energy crops, including GM tree plantations, are far from sustainable or environmentally benign [1-3] (Biofuels for Oil Addicts , SiS 30; Biofuels: Biodevastation, Hunger & False Carbon Credits , Biofuels Republic Brazil, SiS 33). But in the rush to exploit GM trees, caution will be scattered to the winds, like the pollen of the GM trees currently being tested.
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Box 1
Industry's spin on GM energy crops for saving carbon emissions
Biotech industry sponsored International Service for the Acquisition of Agrobiotechnology Applications (ISAAA) continues its yearly inflated estimates of area planted with GM crops [4] ( Global GM Crops Area Exaggerated , SiS 33), and makes unsubstantiated, very likely false claims on how GM crops can contribute to saving greenhouse gas emissions on the coat tails of the Stern report on The Economics of
Climate Change [5] ( SiS 33). To set the record straight, the Stern report does not support GM crops nor does it favour biofuels from energy crops, and for good reasons (see main text).
Nevertheless, the ISAAA says that GM crops save carbon emissions by reducing pesticide use through insecticidal Bt crops and by sequestering carbon in the soil through conservation tillage with herbicide tolerant crops [4]. In 2005, it claims, the combined savings were equivalent to 9
million tonnes of carbon dioxide, or removing 4 million cars from the road. And looking to the future, even greater contributions could be made through cultivation of additional areas of GM energy crops to produce ethanol and biodiesel.
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Commercial releases and field tests
Even though the first GM tree, papaya, was approved for commercial release more than ten years ago there have been only two petitions for non-regulated status, the first for another papaya GM event and the other for virus resistant plums [6, 7] ( USDA Proposes to Deregulate Its Own
Transgenic Plum , SiS 31). However, the United States has undertaken about 264 field test releases of numerous GM trees spread over most of the states and possessions.
Modified species include tropical trees (banana, avocado, grapefruit, lime, papaya and coffee), horticultural fruits (apple, plum, pear and walnut), and numerous forest and shade trees such as eucalyptus, American chestnut, American elm, poplar, cottonwood, aspen, white spruce and pine.
Transgenic traits range from disease or insect resistance and herbicide tolerance, to lignin modifications, sterility, and bioremediation [8].
Canada has undertaken 33 field trial releases of GM trees mainly near Quebec City; and these are limited to insect resistant or herbicide tolerant poplar, black spruce and white spruce [9].
Of the 205 permit applications listed at the end of 2003, 73.5 percent originated in the USA, 23 percent in other OECD member nations (in particular, Belgium, Canada, France, Finland, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Spain and Sweden) and 3.5 percent elsewhere (Brazil, China, Chile, South Africa and Uruguay) [10]. Four traits accounted for 80
percent of the permit applications: herbicide tolerance (32 percent), marker genes (27 percent), insect resistance (12 percent), and lignin modification (9 percent). Of the tree species involved, Populus , Pinus , Liquidambar (Sweet Gum Tree) and Eucalyptus account for 85 percent of applications.
Potential hazards of GM trees
Genetically modified (GM) trees have all the potential hazards of GM crops and genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in general (Box 2) [11]( Genetic Engineering Dream or Nightmare ) , only worse.
Box 2
Potential Hazards of GMOs
1. Synthetic genes and gene products new to evolution could be toxic for humans and other animals or provoke serious immune reactions
2. The uncontrollable, imprecise process involved in making GMOs can generate unintended toxic and immunogenic products, exacerbated by the instability of the transgenic lines
3. Endogenous viruses that cause diseases could be activated by the transgenic process
4, The synthetic genes in GMOs, including copies of genes from bacteria and viruses that cause disease as well as antibiotic resistance genes, may be transferred to other species via pollen, or by direct integration into other genomes in horizontal gene transfer
5. Disease-causing viruses and bacteria are created by horizontal transfer and recombination of the synthetic genes and genetic modification is nothing if not facilitated and greatly enhanced horizontal gene transfer and recombination
6. GM DNA are designed to invade genomes and insertion into the genome of animals including human beings results in insertion mutagenesis some of which may trigger cancer
7. Herbicide tolerant GM crops accumulate herbicide and herbicide residues that could be highly toxic to humans and animals as well as plants
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Trees are larger and longer lived, and therefore can spread transgenes further and wider, while their extensive root systems are a hotbed for horizontal gene transfer and recombination.
Related environmental impact studies show GM tree pollen cannot be contained
ISIS alerted the public to the serious health and environmental impacts of GM trees in forestry [10] ( GM Forest Trees - The Ultimate Threat , SiS 26) and earlier, in bioremediation and low lignin applications [12] ( GM Trees Alert , SiS 16). Numerous field releases were approved in the absence of information on the spread of pollen and seed in forest and orchard ecology. Only recently have models of pollen dispersal from forest trees begun to appear.
Significant amounts of oak pollen were deposited up to 30 km downstream from a stand of oak trees, and lower quantities deposited up to 100 km [13]. It has been claimed that conifer pollen dispersed to between 6 and 800 m from a source; but a more comprehensive study revised this figure upwards to between 8 and 33 km [14, 15].
Eucalyptus pollen is spread by small insects, which can carry pollen to distances of 1.6 km, although most of the hybridisation is found within 200 m of the plantation [16].
It is essentially impossible to contain GM trees; the probability of spreading transgenes from GM conifers is 100 percent at a distance of one km from a source [17]. Pine seeds, too, are transported over great distances, the probability that seeds are transported further than one km
from a source was nearly 100 percent [18]. Canadian regulators, recognizing that transgene containment is not possible for GM forest trees, are now suggesting that regulations should be altered to accommodate the uncontrolled release of GM trees with transgenes for
herbicide tolerance, insect resistance or low lignin content [19]!
The low lignin trait is one much desired by foresters as it provides greatly reduced costs in preparing fibre for paper.
However, reduced lignin results in reduced strength to resist wind damage in the GM trees, and tends to make the trees susceptible to disease [20] ( Low Lignin GM Trees and Forage Crops , SiS 23). A recent field study showed that the trees with reduced lignin decomposed more rapidly in the
soil and that decay was associated with major restructuring of the soil microbial communities, the adverse impacts of which have yet to be fully evaluated [21].
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