Today’s email included a passionate plea from CREDO. A company called ArborGen, Inc. is developing genetically modified pine seedlings, and CREDO wants me to sign a petition to save the planet from Trees Run Amok.
Let me begin by stating that I do not have a strong opinion one way or another. Genetics has never been my strong suit. I simply have not studied the issue enough to know whether GMO trees might pose a potential problem. I have met representatives of ArborGen at trade shows, and they seem like nice enough people who have no devious plans to forever alter life as we know it.
When I attempt to research an unfamiliar topic, I look for sources that present the evidence in an informative and balanced fashion. Then I make up my mind. Or if the topic is complex, I might remain undecided.
CREDO’s letter gave 4 sources to back up its position. One source is a letter dated August 28, 2014, from the US Department of Agriculture to ArborGen, link here. The letter is in response to a request from ArborGen from 2012. USDA has taken the position that, by its reading of the Plant Protection Act, genetically modified pine seedlings are not in one of the regulated categories.
The USDA letter urges ArborGen follow to principles laid down by the forest biotech community, and links to this web page. The linked report compares regulatory responses in the various countries where GMO trees have become an issue.
So far so good.
Another source cited in the CREDO email is an opinion piece from The Center for Food Safety, link here. It does a decent job of describing the issue, although it leans on conjecture to make some of its points. For example:
ArborGen’s GE loblolly pine is engineered to have more dense wood, though little else can be determined from the company’s letter to USDA. According to Dr. Martha Crouch, a biologist working with Center for Food Safety, wood density can impact how quickly decomposition occurs, changing nutrient cycles. Wood density also influences insects and fungi that are important for birds and other forest creatures. And genetic engineering can cause unintended changes, such as altering the nutrients in seeds upon which so many animals depend.
Genetically modified trees would be planted with the intention of being harvested, not to be left in the woods to rot. And a dense log will decay eventually. Count me unconvinced.
Let’s move on the final two links, which I find to be more problematic, from the standpoint of swaying my opinion. The Campaign to Stop GE Trees (we can guess their point of view) says this:
Ripping down forests to replace them with industrial GE tree plantations worsens climate change, and devastates biodiversity and the human communities that depend on those forests.
And
Genetically engineered tree plantations, especially eucalyptus and pine, would be extremely flammable and could contribute to deadly firestorms.
Note the use of
ripping, devastates and
deadly firestorms. These words are designed to produce an emotional response, not inform. Nobody will rip down a productive forest to replace it with GMO trees. Some landowners who plan to harvest their trees anyway might opt for GMO trees as a replacement. Replacing an existing loblolly pine forest with a GMO loblolly pine forest will not worsen climate change, nor will it appreciably change the fire hazard. However, I’m with them on the eucalyptus, which I regard as an invasive species in the southern US.
More:
ArborGen’s brand-name conservation system, FlexStand, does more to maximize profits than conserve forests, including:
• Encouraging forest owners to continue using chemicals in their plantations, and to cash in on emerging domestic carbon and bioenergy markets.
• Posturing as “sustainable” forestry, but is, in reality, little more than economic opportunism, soon to be enabled by faster growing GE eucalyptus trees.
Most of the forestland in the southern US is privately owned. It is perfectly reasonable to encourage property owners to make their lands more productive. Southern forests are awash in invasive plant species, such as privet, kudzu, English ivy, and Asian wisteria; each of which form dense stands which limit tree growth and can scarcely be stopped by any means besides herbicides.
For many property owners, the most attractive alternative to growing trees is to sell the land to a developer. I have yet to see a subdivision that is as ecologically viable as a forest. Where did those previously mentioned invasive species come from? Folks unwittingly planted them in their yards, and government agencies planted them along roads. Every new subdivision becomes an incubator for invasive species, and it fragments the remaining forests in the area. We need to encourage owners of forested lands to keep them in forests, even if they plant trees and use herbicides. And we should not be outraged if they earn a profit.
When privet takes over, forest land is lost.
Keep in mind that virtually every acre of land in the South has been disturbed many times over. Show me an 80 year old forest that looks pristine to the untrained eye, and I will show you old roadways, rock piles, and building foundations. Much of our current forest land is former farm land.
Finally, we have a position statement from the Sierra Club. They offer this paragraph,
These companies now see an opportunity to engineer trees which grow faster, contain less lignin, are more uniform in their characteristics, are more resistant to disease and so forth. And unfortunately, if this is the way to make money, this is where corporations are headed. Sierra Club believes that pressure from society in the form of legal prohibitions and restraints, stringent regulations and liability laws, and environmental and consumer activism must be brought to bear in order to hold the industry in check and safeguard the public good.
which, if I may translate, says “
We object to timber companies making a profit, and we will do everything in our power to prevent them from practicing capitalism on lands they own.”
This sentence is even more blunt:
To put it briefly, tree plantations are not forests.
Wow, you could have fooled me. This is perhaps my biggest issue with the Sierra Club. We live in a world with seven billion human inhabitants who are unsustainably using fossil fuels, metals, and other resources. Trees are renewable. In order to make them available to this huge population, we simply have to plant trees. And it is reasonable to expect that those who plant and harvest trees will make a profit from their work.
A sweeping statement such as “tree plantations are not forests” has no more validity than the rhetoric coming from the right. We constantly mock their unfounded generalizations of liberals and minorities. I don’t cut them any slack, nor do I cut the Sierra Club any slack.
Forests are so incredibly diverse that they cannot be categorized in such stark terms. That is why it takes several years of university study to become a competent forester. I have seen natural stands that are close to being biological deserts. I have seen plantations with great diversity. I can take you pine forests in the South, and Douglas-fir forests in the Northwest, where it is impossible to tell whether they were planted. How would the Sierra Club describe these places?
I simply cannot resist one last dig at the Sierra Club. They tell us:
We would also point out that the United States is using twice as much paper per capita as other highly civilized nations (Europe, Japan). Let us not ask genetic engineering to do what could be accomplished by lower-tech means like putting a surcharge on junk mail.
Yes, these were all mailed to me. I have never been a member of the Sierra Club, but they sure wanted me to join!
Okay, I have wandered all over the place, and I apologize for the lack of coherence. My wanderings followed those of CREDO. My purpose is to show that there is a right way to win hearts and minds, and a wrong way. After reading their petition request, and following their supporting links, I am convinced that I should not sign their petition. They failed to make a compelling case to support their position.
Do I favor GMO trees? I still do not have enough information to make that decision. To study the issue thoroughly would require far more time than I have available. I lean towards being cautious, towards requiring more study before releasing GMO trees into the wild. Probably my biggest question is whether pollen from GMO trees will pass the GMO traits to native forests.
I welcome your opinions, especially if you have a background in genetics, or otherwise have close knowledge of this topic. Remember that the CREDO petition is about GMO loblolly pine in the southern United States, so please keep the discussion from straying too far afield. We’re a reality-based community, and I’m looking for reality here.
Link to ArborGen website.