News on the Web
Violating the Sacred: GMO Chestnuts for the Holidays?
“Chestnuts roasting on an open fire, Jack Frost nipping at your nose…” We don’t even have to provide the score for you to hear this song clearly in your head. “The Christmas Song” written in 1945 by Bob Wells and Mel Tormé is a classic. However, by that time in history, the American chestnut (Castanea dentata) trees had almost completely vanished. They had fallen victim to an airborne fungus introduced by the import of an ornamental chestnut from Japan.
Struggle Against Monoculture Tree Plantations
On occasion of September 21st, International day of Struggle against Tree Plantations, women from several countries from West and Central Africa have taken the initiative to release simultaneously the petition we enclose below.
The petition is an urgent request from women in Africa to stop the suffering and the violent impacts the expansion of industrial oil palm plantations is creating on womens´ lives, that affect women in and outside the African continent: Violence, sexual abuses, rape, harassment, persecution, destruction of their means of livelihoods. – Click title to read more.
The Big Green Lies – FrankenTrees a Clear and Present Danger to the Southeast
ArborGen, a leading biotech corporation specializing in supplying hybrid tree seedlings for the commercial forestry industry is ready to offer a genetically engineered freeze tolerant eucalyptus tree to their customers in the U.S. Southeast.
FAO definition must recognize that plantations are not forests!
Harvesting the wood… NOT sustainable – NOT Green Photo Credit: World Rainforest Movement
The State of the forest movement in the era of Trump: Ideas for Strengthening Our Collective Work
Trump is waging a war on both communities and the environment. The forests of the U.S. are going to be hit hard at the hands of Trump and his ultra-right wing band of robber barons.
At the same time, the forest protection movement in this country has fragmented and communication amongst us has quieted since its height in the 1990s.
With this in mind, we have reached a critical moment for the movement for forest protection in the U.S.
These combinations of factors are leading many in the movement to begin conversations about regenerating and unifying forest protection efforts across North America. That is what we plan to discuss at a workshop at the 2017 Heartwood Forest Council in May.
New Genetically Modified Tree Approved by USDA with No Assessments Groups are outraged
Are you worried about genetically modified trees replacing what was once known a nature? Protection groups from around the globe have unified to publicly condemn the US government for allowing the first genetically modified tree to be legalized with zero government or public oversight and zero environmental risk assessments. What’s more, the decision was made despite overwhelming public opposition. A letter from the USDA to GE tree company ArborGen dated last August was recently exposed by scientist Doug Gurian-Sherman of the Center for Food Safety. It appears that the USDA, in all its glory, decided to allow ArborGen to pursue unregulated commercial cultivation of a genetically modified loblolly pine for altered wood composition. These trees could be planted anywhere – without you knowing.
Climate Crisis: Radical Action or a New Battlefront in the War on Nature?
Will declaring a ‘climate emergency’ help to finally prompt radical action to address climate change? A growing number of campaigners as well as scientists think so and hope that a major wakeup call about unfolding climate disasters will spur governments and people into action. Whether a lack of scary-enough facts about climate change has been holding back real action is questionable. After all, it requires a fair amount of psychological denial to not be alarmed by the escalating heat waves, droughts, floods and destructive mega storms.
Open Letter to CTNBio to reject GE Trees in Brazil
The International Campaign to STOP GE Trees urges the Brazilian government and CTNBio to refuse Futuragene’s request to plant GE trees in Brazil.
The Campaign to STOP GE Trees, including Biofuelwatch, Canadian Biotechnology Action Network, Global Justice Ecology Project, Indigenous Environmental Network, World Rainforest Movement, released the following statement in support of the “Open Letter to CTNBio”: The Campaign to Stop GE Trees, an international coalition founded in 2004, supports a global ban on commercial deregulation of genetically engineered trees (also known as genetically modified trees) based on serious concerns about their impacts on biodiversity and human rights. The Campaign supports the position expressed herein, in solidarity with the “Open Letter to CTNBio” from Brazilian and Latin American groups, that calls upon CTNBio to reject the request by the Futuragene corporation for commercial approval of GE trees in Brazil.
GE Trees and Indigenous Lands
TELEPress Conference – Sponsored by the Campaign To Stop GE Trees
Indigenous peoples are now facing continued and new forms of exploitation in the guise of renewable, sustainable and green development from genetically engineered trees for energy production. The other experts on this panel present the government, academic and private entities involved and others have presented the science-based reasons that the insertion and proliferation of GE trees into our natural world will further threaten both environmental and human health.
Genetically-Engineered Trees: A “Cure” Worse Than the Disease
On Thursday, the Brazilian Landless Workers Movement, MST, made it quite clear that they, along with groups all over the world, soundly reject genetically engineered trees. Futuragene, a company owned by Suzano, one of Brazil’s largest pulp producers, had recently applied for commercial release of a GE eucalyptus. A decision by the country’s biosafety commission, CTNBio, was expected to take place. Over the past week, groups around the world organized and participated in an “emergency day of action” standing vigil outside of Brazilian embassies urging that GE trees not be approved.