News on the Web
NO GE Trees in our wild forests…
One More Time! Deadline January 26, 2023 Please consider submitting a comment opposing the granting of non-regulated status of the genetically engineered American chestnut tree "Darling58" (GEAC-D58). The unregulated and intentional release of GE trees in the US would...
Open Letter Denouncing Suzano Papel e Celulose’s Genetically Engineered (GE) Eucalyptus
More than 50 organizations, networks and movements from Brazil and around the world denounce the release into the environment and the commercial use of a new transgenic eucalyptus from the Brazilian company Suzano Papel e Celulose! The approval by the National...
Jackson Protestors Push Back on Calfire’s Hired Goons Nonviolently
A protestor stands next to a recently felled tree in the Jackson Demonstration State Forest [Picture provided by KZYX Program Direction Alicia Bales]
Wall Street Firm Makes Wager on Carbon-Offset Forests
Oak Hill Advisors LP, which manages $52 billion and is best known as a big debt investor, is teaming up on the venture with Bluesource, a firm that creates and sells carbon credits. The companies said they expect to buy roughly one million acres of North American woodlands and manage the properties to generate so-called forest offsets.
GREEN DIAMOND CLEARCUTS FOREST AMIDST THE COLLAPSE OF OUR CLIMATE
Forest activists in Northern California recently sent an open letter to a timber corporation in Northern California while simultaneously putting up a new tree-sit in a threatened redwood forest. The company, Green Diamond Resource Co., is notorious for its bad logging practices. Despite their clearcutting and encroaching into habitat of threatened and endangered species, GDRC managed to get “sustainable” certification from the Forest Stewardship Council and the Sustainable Forestry Initiative. This forest lies just north of an area that has been protected from additional logging by tree-sitters since 2012.
False Biomass Energy Industry Claims Demand a Response
Arial shot of a forest with trees dying from pests, pathogens, and/or climate change. Photo Credit Duke.edu
As scientists with expertise in forest and fire ecology and climate change in California, we feel compelled to expose the many false claims from the biomass industry in your May 19 article (“In California, A Push Grows to Turn Dead Trees into Biomass Energy”). These claims fly in the face of the best available science. Creating effective forest, fire, and climate policy depends on getting the facts right.
Experts Discuss Dangers of Genetically Engineered American Chestnut Release
New York – December 5th, In advance of the public release of a petition requesting unprecedented USDA permission for the unregulated planting of the first genetically engineered plant into the wild, experts are calling attention to the risks and dangers of this plan.
In a series of short recorded presentations, five experts from the Campaign to STOP Genetically Engineered trees discuss risks of the proposed release of genetically engineered American chestnut trees into wild forests.
US Forest Service MUST Continue to Consult With Public on ALL Projects!
The United States Forest Service (USFS) is proposing to eliminate public participation and virtually abandon their legal and moral responsibility by significantly changing how it complies with the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).
Adhering to these rules requires among other steps, to conduct environmental impact studies (EISs), allow for public review and must take into account not only scientific study of the possible impacts and threats but our approval or denial for proposed activities within public lands. These projects include logging, pipelines, and road building through 193 million acres of the last remaining wild places that belong to WE the PEOPLE!
Executive Summary: Genetically Engineered American Chestnut White Paper
The GE AC is promoted as a test case to sway public opinion toward supporting the use of biotechnology for forest conservation, and to pave the way for the introduction of other GE trees. However, most other GE trees in development would be grown in industrial monoculture plantations, for the commercial production of timber, pulp and biofuels.
Giving new life to native trees
Bagoadlau, the hardest and densest of all local ironwoods
Giant pandas, Philippine eagles, African elephants and Bengal tigers are not the only species facing extinction. Some trees found only in the Philippines are, too.
Widespread logging, the indiscriminate conversion of primary forests into commercial plantations, housing developments, infrastructure projects and the steady march of climate change have all combined to push a number of native tree species to the brink of extinction.
Helping make sure that the Philippines will not lose these endemic trees vital to maintaining biodiversity is Energy Development Corp. (EDC), the renewable energy unit of the Lopez group of companies, through its groundbreaking Binhi (seed) program.
Europe’s renewable energy policy is built on burning American trees
But a cadre of scientists and policy activists are now pushing back, saying that biomass energy rests on deceptive accounting. Rather than being carbon neutral, biomass is liquidating millions of tons of irreplaceable carbon stocks in the midst of a climate crisis already out of control.
Genetically Engineered American Chestnut Tree Called ‘Trojan Horse’ Aimed at Opening Door to Commercialize GE Trees
If approved, it would be the first GE forest tree legalized in the US. It would also be the first GMO approved for release in the wild with the intention of spreading pollen to contaminate wild relatives with the engineered trait. If approved, the unregulated GE American chestnut would eventually replace the wild American chestnut, which would no longer exist in the forests.