Making the Case: Keep Our Forests Wild!

The Bird, the Borer and the Bean

The theory of managing land simultaneously for agriculture and biodiversity conservation is somewhat a controversial one. The so-called ‘land sparing’ concept suggests crop yields can be maximized by agricultural intensification and managing agriculture and biodiversity in separate spatial contexts. However, Karp’s findings support the ‘land sharing’ side of the debate and suggest that forest elements distributed throughout farmland provided around 99% of the pest control benefits to coffee farmers. The findings also provide evidence that conservation management practices can provide ecosystem services such as pest control without a shortfall in yield and the use of noxious chemical pesticides. Read More.

The Risks – Voices of Caution For Good Reasons

Renowned Expert: GMOs Pose More Risk Than We Think

Taleb’s primary concern isn’t that ingesting GMOs is necessarily bad for us; he’s instead focused on the monumental threat such technology has on our worldwide ecosystem. While Taleb agrees that the relative risk of any one transgenic seed ruining the ecosystem is incredibly small, people are still underestimating the risks involved.

That’s because, as humans, we are ill equipped to understand the mathematics behind such risks. Let’s say each GM seed that’s produced holds a 0.1% chance of — somehow, in the intricately interdependent web of nature — leading to a catastrophic breakdown of the ecosystem that we rely on for life. All by itself, it doesn’t seem too harmful, but with each new seed that’s developed, the risk gets greater and greater.

The chart below demonstrates how, over time, even a 0.1% chance of ecocide can be dangerous. Read More.

The twisted truth on GMOs

The muzzling of government scientists isn’t stopping the questions about GMO safety

Nonetheless, we’re on the cusp of an unnerving new era of novel life forms. It includes the first GM trees – eucalyptus and apple – recently approved in the U.S. and Brazil. Health Canada may also be on the verge of approving the first GM food animal, a salmon. Meanwhile, Canada’s system for approvals remains as secretive and susceptible to industry influence as ever. Read more.

Genetic Engineering of …. New Schemes for Commercializing Trees

FDA Approves Some Genetically Modified Apples and Potatoes

Arctic Apple, which we’ve covered before, is the brand name for the two varieties of apple that have just been approved. You’ll be able to get either a Granny Smith or a Golden Delicious version, both of which have been modified to remove the enzyme that turns an apple brown after it’s been exposed to oxygen in the air. The enormous agribusiness corporation J.R. Simplot is responsible for the potatoes, which will be marketed under the name Innate and have been modified in a similar way—except with the addition of reducing acrylamide, a substance that shows up when you fry potatoes for chips or french fries and that may cause cancer (nobody’s quite sure yet). Read more.

Rose scent in poplar trees? WSU turns to genetic engineering

Born out of the frustrating quest to wring biofuels from woody plants, the WSU project takes a different tack. Instead of grinding up trees to produce commercial quantities of so-called cellulosic ethanol, their goal is to turn poplars into living factories that churn out modest levels of chemicals with premium price tags. Read More.

Forest2Market do Brazil Brings Transparent Market Pricing to the Brazilian Forest Products Industry

Forest2Market® announces its expansion to the Brazilian market with the formation of Forest2Market do Brazil. Staffed with Brazilian forest products industry experts from Grupo Index with deep supply chain expertise, Forest2Market do Brasil is a Brazilian company that has adopted Forest2Market’s proven methodology for collecting and reporting timber prices. Initially, the company will offer two products, a stumpage price report and a delivered price benchmark. Read More.

GM Trees May Save Earth’s Forests from Worst Effects of Climate Change

Genetically modifying trees can alter the way they grow, how they resist disease, and even increase their carbon sink capacity. But the anti-GMO movement seems to not understand the implications of their resistance to research in this field. Here’s a quote from Rachel Smolker, BioFuel Watch: “This is deliberate, irreversible and completely irresponsible contamination of the environment with unknown and possibly devastating consequences.” Read more.

What’s the most sustainable wood for my new deck?

Yellow pine grows relatively quickly, is cheap and readily available at big-box stores, and vast swathes of genetically engineered pines aren’t dominating your southern forests (though I would be remiss not to mention that the USDA recently declined to regulate one company’s GE loblolly pine). Umbra isn’t a fan of GE loblolly pine…. Read more.

Greening-Resistant GMO Oranges Come One Step Closer To Market. Here’s Why You Should Care.

The Environmental Protection Agency announced last week that it has given major Florida citrus grower Southern Gardens approval for large-scale field testing of citrus trees that have been genetically engineered to resist citrus greening, a ruinous disease that has caused orange production to plummet to the lowest levels seen in decades. Read more.

Genetically-Engineered Trees: A “Cure” Worse Than the Disease

Meanwhile, in faraway Malaysia, there is fresh brewing concern over field trials of a rubber tree engineered to secrete pharmaceutical compounds in latex. In biotechnology labs around the world, tree engineers are working to create trees amenable to producing “biomass”, secreting chemicals useful for plastics and pharmaceuticals and much more.  A virtual war has been waged in the press over the proclaimed safety of GMO food crops as many states have attempted, or (in my home state of Vermont) succeeded in passing GMO labeling laws.  Read more.

EXTREME BIOFUELS / BIOENERGY

Genetically-Engineered Trees: A “Cure” Worse Than the Disease

Keen to profit from all this new and insatiable demand for “biomass”, the tree biotechnology industry is promoting their “faster growing”, “freeze tolerant” or “denser wood” trees, as well as trees that secrete certain chemicals or have other “useful” properties that make them amenable to use for fuels, chemicals, even plastics. The idea of GMO contamination spreading from trees engineered for fuels and chemicals, into native forests is fundamentally revolting.  Since trees can spread seeds and pollen over great distances, contamination would be virtually impossible to prevent and once it occurs, irreversible.  Read more.

EPA’s goal to get to cellulosic ethanol

McCarthy addresses RFS, biogenic emissions during hearing

“I think that congressman we all agree—and the statute is pretty clear—that we are really trying to get to advanced and cellulosic [biofuels],” she [McCarthy] said.

During the hearing, McCarthy said the EPA has been meeting with several organizations and companies on the issue, and those companies have provide the agency with great information. She also noted that a scientific advisory board is working on the issue to try to identify how to provide incentives for the continued use of biomass in sustainable ways. “On the whole, if you look at it, its very good from a greenhouse gas perspective,” she said. “The challenge is to put that into a framework that allows us to continue with the type of exemption…that the courts have now overturned, but to understand how we can look at biomass in a context of not just of greenhouse gas permitting, but on the whole to encourage the kind of sustainability that we are seeing out there.” McCarthy said she is hopeful that framework could be complete sometime this year.  Read more.

Cellulosic ethanol fights for life

Pioneering biofuel producers hope that US government largesse will ease their way into a tough market.

Thermochemical routes can also use lower quality feedstocks, tearing through anything from wood chips to municipal solid waste. Enerkem, a company in Montreal, Canada, is starting its first commercial-scale plant to turn solid waste into syngas, in Edmonton. By April or May, it will be able to transform the syngas into methanol. Next year, it plans to convert the methanol into ethanol, and it says that will be cheaper than corn ethanol. Read more of this detailed report regarding biofuels in general – but does include references to GE & non-GE tree/ woody mass from “Nature”

BioFuels / BioRefineries

UF/IFAS researchers target eucalyptus as source of fuel for biomass production

The $20 million Stan Mayfield Biorefinery Plant opened in 2012 and is a cooperative research venture between UF/IFAS and Buckeye Technologies Inc. It is expected to be fully operational later this summer, producing up to 400 gallons of fuel ethanol and 5,000 pounds of organic acids for bioplastics each day. Read More.

Eucalyptus

Corporate profit trumps common sense in Brazil

Invasion of the Genetically Engineered Trees!

On April 9, the Brazilian Technical Commission on Biosafety (CTNBio) officially approved a request to plant genetically engineered (GE) eucalyptus trees. The approval marks the first time a commercial entity has been allowed to plant GE trees in Latin America. Read more.

A Thousand Angry Women Say No to Genetically Engineered Trees

On March 5th, a thousand angry women descended on a facility in Brazil where the biotechnology company, FuturaGene, was growing genetically engineered eucalyptus trees. Later that day, a meeting of the Brazilian Biosafety Commission (CTNBio) was scheduled to announce their decision about whether or not to allow commercial release of the GE eucalyptus. The women, members of the Brazilian Landless Workers Movement, or MST, and several other social movements in Brazil were angry. They broke into the facility and ripped up tree seedlings. They made clear their determination to prevent the release of GE eucalyptus because they have direct experience with the harms resulting from existing large plantations of non-GE eucalyptus, and they know that faster-growing engineered trees will have even greater impacts.

Meanwhile, at Brazilian embassies and consulates at various locations around the world, protesters held signs and banners demanding that Brazil reject GE trees — beginning with a rejection of FuturaGene’s franken eucalyptus. Read more.

UF/IFAS researchers target eucalyptus as source of fuel for biomass production

University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences researchers working to produce ethanol from plant material are taking a hard look at eucalyptus as a possible source for the clean fuel.

Joe Sagues, director of operations at the UF’s Stan Mayfield Biorefinery Pilot Plant in Perry, Florida, and Ismael Uriel Nieves, project director at the plant, recently switched the focus of their lab-scale research from sugarcane and sorghum to eucalyptus for this study. They say the tree, most commonly associated with Australia and food for koalas, is a fast-growing hardwood that is easier to store and transport. Read More.

Forest scientists seek help with new Eucalyptus pest

A new pest of commercial Eucalyptus trees appears to have made its way to South Africa. While forest scientists have yet to confirm the pest’s identity, initial indications are that it may belong to the genus Spondyliaspis, more commonly known as shell lerp psyllids. Read more.

American Chestnut

Can We Engineer an American Chestnut Revival?

The SUNY project, spearheaded by plant pathologist William Powell, has created an array of blight-resistant genetically modified chestnut trees. Powell and collaborators accomplished this by inserting a wheat gene into the American chestnut genome that codes for the enzyme oxalate oxidase, a compound that effectively zonks the invading C. parasitica fungus. The transgenic trees appear to be as resistant to chestnut blight as the impervious Chinese chestnuts, though otherwise their genetic makeup is almost entirely that of conventional American chestnut trees.  Read more.

American Chestnut Trees Make a Return in NY State

Scores of young transgenic American chestnut trees developed at the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry (ESF) will take root this spring across New York state, representing one more step in the restoration of a once-dominant species that has virtually vanished from the landscape. Read more.

Poplar

Collateral damage: Backers say M2-89 would only ban GMO crops, but OSU researchers fear it would hurt them too

“There are people who don’t like the idea of engineered genes getting into a wild tree,” Strauss explained. “If you can reduce the possibility of those future scenarios by greatly reducing the possibility of gene movement, it makes the idea (of genetic engineering) much more acceptable to regulators and the public.” Read more.

GMO tree plan grows a debate in Española

Some area farmers and others have signed petitions against the project, and they were recently sent to Española officials. So far about 150 signatures have been filed, but more are being gathered at farmers markets and elsewhere.

“We feel that this genetically engineered material threatens our ecosystem and our ability to make a living as farmers and ranchers,” says one petition.

It notes that Española recently removed invasive species such as salt cedar, Russian olives and Siberian elms from the Rio Grande’s riparian area. “We feel that your GMO (genetically modified organism) poplars will be more detrimental than those you have just removed, as it threatens all poplars in the ecosystem including cottonwood, willow and aspen.” Read more.

China’s GM trees get lost in bureaucracy

These plantations have been plagued by insect pests, so Chinese researchers have experimented by planting varieties of local poplar tree that have been genetically modified to resist the insects. But at a meeting on GM safety in Beijing in July, a number of scientists complained about the absence of proper controls over GM trees within China. Read more.

The Science – Reports, Studies, Articles

Ecological interactions between herbivores and silver birch and aspen trees genetically modified for fungal disease resistance

Many risks and environmental concerns have been linked with the cultivation of genetically modified (GM) trees. Among the most frequently mentioned risks are the unintentional/pleiotropic effects of transgenes on organisms or plant properties that are not the targets of genetic modification. Risks in forest ecosystems are difficult to predict, due to the long life cycles of trees and their complex ecological interactions. This thesis is focused on the interactions between insect and mammal herbivores and transgenic trees. The studied silver birch (Betula pendula Roth) carried a sugar beet chitinase IV gene and the aspen and hybrid aspen (Populus sp.) carried a pine pinosylvin synthase gene, both aiming to improve the trees resistance to fungal diseases, but also potentially affecting insect and mammal herbivores. Read the report – PDF

GM trees with increased resistance to herbivores: trait efficiency and their potential to promote tree growth

Climate change, as well as a more intensive forestry, is expected to increase the risk of damage by pests and pathogens on trees, which can already be a severe problem in tree plantations. Recent development of biotechnology theoretically allows for resistance enhancement that could help reduce these risks but we still lack a comprehensive understanding of benefits and tradeoffs with pest resistant GM (genetically modified) trees. We synthesized the current knowledge on the effectiveness of GM forest trees with increased resistance to herbivores. There is ample evidence that induction of exogenous Bacillus thuringiensis genes reduce performance of target pests whereas upregulation of endogenous resistance traits e.g., phenolics, generates variable results. Our review identified very few studies estimating the realized benefits in tree growth of GM trees in the field. This is concerning as the realized benefit with insect resistant GM plants seems to be context-dependent and likely manifested only if herbivore pressure is sufficiently high. Future studies of secondary pest species and resistance evolution in pest to GM trees should be prioritized. But most importantly we need more long-term field tests to evaluate the benefits and risks with pest resistant GM trees. Read more.

Saving forests is more effective than planting new trees

“While we were expecting to find a change as a result of nutrient limitation, we were quite surprised by the large response to nutrient limitation for both deforestation and afforestation,” said Wang. “Our work shows that it is much more effective for climate mitigation to protect existing tropical and subtropical forests than planting trees in temperate and boreal regions where tree growth is slower and is more strongly limited by nutrients than in the tropical and subtropical regions.” Read more.

American Chestnuts

The Backcross Method

Guaranteeing Regional Adaptability and Long-term Resistance
Across the range of the American chestnut, traits such as stature and timber quality probably differ little. But regional conditions such as temperature, day length, soils, moisture, elevation and others differ greatly from Maine to Mississippi, and there probably are unique combinations of traits for adaptation to different regions. In order to preserve that wide array of genetic diversity and adaptability, TACF’s breeding program uses American parents from a number of populations of trees. Our Connecticut, Georgia, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Indiana, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Tennessee and Carolinas chapters have active breeding programs that are extending the range of regional adaptation in backcross trees. Read more.

Fruit Bearing

Greening-Resistant GMO Oranges Come One Step Closer To Market. Here’s Why You Should Care.

The Environmental Protection Agency announced last week that it has given major Florida citrus grower Southern Gardens approval for large-scale field testing of citrus trees that have been genetically engineered to resist citrus greening, a ruinous disease that has caused orange production to plummet to the lowest levels seen in decades. Read more.