CAN'T SEE THE TREES FOR THE WOOD

CAN'T SEE THE TREES FOR THE WOOD

Most systems of forest stewardship of sustained productivity and value to local people are based on diversity (see box). Such systems often include a mixture of forests, woodlands, agricultural fields, and gathering or hunting grounds arranged in seemingly-irregular patterns which fit local topography and community convenience. They typically feature trees planted or maintained for a variety of purposes including food, shade, erosion control and protection for livestock; fruit, vegetables and wood for humans; and water, nutrients and protection for crops. This diversity of uses generally reflects a local politics in which no single production interest is able to exclude all others. It has a number of beneficial effects – for example, shielding insect species from the selection pressures they would encounter in a monoculture, which often turn them into devastating pests.

In opposition to such systems is an old forestry tradition of centralised control which attempts to create large, simplified wooded landscapes. This tradition stems from the efforts of both early modern European states and large commercial concerns to create, as if from a blueprint, a more uniform forest that was both more legible to bureaucrats and their employees and more "efficient" in its production of a single commodity. Systematic seeding, planting and cutting brought into being the ideal commercial "forest," with its grid pattern of similar trees managed according to globally-applicable techniques and free of "extraneous" vegetation or human activity. Such "forests" – and the industrial plantations which followed – became rigidly separated from agriculture (see box). The multiple functions of ordinary forests were recast as symptoms of untidiness and disorder. Non-wood uses of forests were termed, at best, "minor forest products," while trees whose growth rates had ceased to justify their survival in economic terms were dismissed as "overmature." Flora and fauna which reduced output were classified as weeds or pests.

This redefinition of forests was accompanied by a redefinition of rights, as forest societies were partly disassembled. Complicated webs of local rights of access to woods and their varied contents – firewood, mushrooms, fodder, nuts, gravel, peat, game, poles, moss and so on – were curtailed as authorities and firms sought to gain more sweeping legal controls over their productive domains. As seeding, planting, nutrients, growth rates and dates of harvest all came under the control of landowners and industry, a backlash, both biological and social, became evident. Growth rates dropped after first rotations of trees had been harvested; pest infestations increased as genetic diversity dropped; wildlife vanished; and local farmers deprived of part of their livelihoods took to resistance and sabotage. All of these, however, were played down as problems which could be "mitigated" through the application of further centrally-administered techniques. Examples included chemical fertiliser and pesticide application; distribution of nesting boxes to replace the hollow trees which birds had previously used; and state repression.

Politically and institutionally, the genetic engineering of trees is directed mainly at perpetuating the tradition of giant-scale industrial operations, corporate power over the countryside, and biologically homogenised landscapes. Genetic modification offers the opportunity of industrial quality control at a new, molecular level. For example, as long as papermakers were dependent on diverse types of wood waste for raw materials, they had to rely mainly on manufacturing processes to ensure uniform paper quality. With pulpwood plantations, however, variability in the raw material itself could be reduced through choice of species, site, inputs, spacing, and breeding techniques. The genetic engineering of trees is merely another step in this standardising process of linking genes to tree, pulp and paper characteristics. Industrialists now envisage vast plantations of trees not only of a single species, but genetically identical.

One of the most important targets of current research is lignin – the strengthening and protective substance of woody plants. In the production of high-quality paper from cellulose fibres, lignin gets in the way and must be removed with a high expenditure of chemicals and energy. By manipulating the genes which instruct woody plants to manufacture the building blocks of lignin, biotechnologists hope to reduce the proportion of the substance in pulpwood trees, or change it to a less ‘troublesome’ type. Reducing lignin by as little as 1% would result in savings of many millions of dollars for the industry and would also be useful environmental public relations, since less water, energy and chemicals could be used in pulp recovery. Several US patents have been taken out on GM low-lignin trees.

Genetic engineers also aim to increase the wood density of trees destined for construction materials or paper pulp manufacture; to curb the tendency to branch in trees grown for furniture; to boost growth rates in fuelwood trees; and to engineer fruit trees for altered taste, different ripening characteristics or pharmaceutical production. One biotech company has been set up to market a caffeine-free GM coffee bush which is billed as a means of avoiding industrial processes of manufacturing decaf coffee.

Insect and disease resistance are also important goals. Among the first genes forest biotechnologists exploited were those encoding insecticidal toxins from the soil bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt). Bt genes have been engineered into a wide range of species, including poplar, European larch, white spruce and walnut. Other genes that have been selected to confer insecticidal properties on trees include protease inhibitor genes (from rice and potatoes) that disrupt insect digestion. In order to counter diseases that reduce the yield of fruit tree plantations, biotechnologists are attempting to engineer resistance to plum pox and papaya ringspot viruses. Researchers are also exploring the possibility of creating GM trees that are resistant to fungal disease, such as leaf rust and leaf spot diseases that affect poplar and white pine plantations.

Genetic engineering is also being applied to the problem of soil salinification associated with industrial plantations, particularly those in Australia. Instead of attempting to reduce salinisation, scientists are adjusting the trees’ genomes to enable them to survive on the spoiled land. One of the areas of greatest current interest for forest biotechnologists is the engineering of broad-spectrum herbicide resistance. Industrial monocultures are typically established by ploughing up existing vegetation – an expensive process which also results in soil erosion. If broad-spectrum herbicides could be used to clear land without affecting plantation species, business could save an estimated US$975 million per year. Hardwoods are a major focus as they are more vulnerable to herbicides than pine trees. Among the trees that have already been grown in field trials are chestnut, sweetgum and poplar which have been engineered with genes to confer resistance to glyphosate, chlorosulfuron and glufosinate-ammonium.

Promising to bypass the need for conventional breeding (a particularly long and costly process with trees due to their long life cycles), genetic engineering is also attractive to wood industries because it extends the breeder’s palette to include a range of previously-unavailable traits from other species. Genes from bacteria, for example, can be used to boost trees’ resistance to insects, and genes from pine to increase nitrogen uptake and growth rates in poplar. This is another reason why genetic engineering is biased against biodiversity: it claims to reduce the need to conserve native genetic resources for breeding purposes.

A glance at who is instigating, funding, patenting and testing the genetic modification of trees confirms that the technology is strongly biased in favour of the industrial monoculture tradition and against more progressive diversity-based systems of forest stewardship.

Some research is being carried out directly by transnational corporations committed to the industrial plantation tradition. One of the biggest efforts toward making genetic engineering in forestry a reality was a US$60 million joint venture announced in April 1999 between Monsanto and pulp and paper manufacturers International Paper, Westvaco and Fletcher Challenge. The last three companies all have miserable reputations for their forestry operations, toxic releases, or both, while Monsanto is a well-known promoter of large agribusiness monocultures worldwide. The objective of their alliance was to make wood easier to pulp. Although Monsanto has now backed off, restricting its role in the deal to that of a technology provider, the other partners remain in the hope that the new "designer trees" will reduce mill costs.

In January 2000 they were joined by the New Zealand company Genesis Research and Development (which specialises in drug discovery and therapeutic vaccines as well as forestry genomics). Fletcher Challenge and Genesis have been in partnership for five years to develop herbicide tolerance in plantation trees such as eucalyptus, poplar and pine. The two firms have also been granted a US patent to alter the lignin content of trees. Japanese paper and auto firms are also carrying out research into the genetic manipulation of trees. In addition, transnational corporations are stumping up money to pay university researchers in a number of countries to carry out investigations into tree biotechnology.

The bulk of basic research, however, is likely to be funded by corporate-friendly government agencies working together with industry associations and universities. This better suits the conservative orientation of many wood industries, who favour the time-tested corporate strategy of shifting research costs off on the public sector wherever possible. The Tree Genetic Engineering Research Cooperative (TGERC) based at Oregon State University in the US is a good example. TGERC is responsible for researching and testing trees genetically modified for improved fibre production, herbicide tolerance and resistance to fungus and insects. It receives funding from the US Department of Energy Biofuels Program, the US Department of Agriculture, and the US Environmental Protection Agency; paper and timber companies such as International Paper, Weyerhaeuser, Boise Cascade, Georgia-Pacific, Union Camp and MacMillan Bloedel; the Electric Power Research Institute, a utility industry association; other firms such as Monsanto and Shell; and Oregon State University itself. Providing technical and logistical support are the US and Canadian Forest Services, Mycogen, the University of Washington, and Washington State University. This wide collaboration, in TGERC’s own words, results in a "leverage factor of nearly 40-fold for individual industrial members."

The more money is available for tree biotech research, of course, the less incentive foresters have to study other areas – a heavy irony, given that while the complexity of forest ecology and tree genetics is well recognised, they are poorly understood and starved of research funding.

The genetic engineering of new traits into trees can be expected only to deepen the familiar environmental and social havoc characteristic of the industrial monoculture tradition:

These are likely to have multiple deleterious effects given lignin’s multifunctionality. Lignin reduction may weaken trees structurally, and some researchers have reported stunted growth and collapsed vessels, leaf abnormalities and an increase in vulnerability to viral infection. Because lignin protects trees from feeding insects, low-lignin trees are also likely to be more susceptible to insect damage, leading to pressures to increase pesticide use. Low-lignin trees will also rot more readily – affecting soil structure, fertiliser use, and forest ecology – and will release carbon dioxide more quickly into the atmosphere.

GM trees that produce their own insecticide will exacerbate the problem of resistance and kill off natural predators, making the problem worse instead of better. In addition, some newly-resistant insects could simultaneously evolve a capability to expand their feeding range to previously less-susceptible plant species. Unexpected pesticide contamination of ecosystems is also possible. The insecticidal Bt which certain agricultural crops have been engineered to produce, for example, has unexpectedly been found to be capable of being exuded through roots and binding with soil particles, persisting in the soil for 243 days and remaining toxic for very long periods. Finally, as long as they enjoy an advantage over trees susceptible to insect feeding, insecticide-producing trees will be able to invade wilder systems with ease, disrupting their insect population dynamics.

Trees genetically modified for resistance to disease are likely to cause fresh epidemics. Genetic diversity within stands is well-recognised as essential to tree health in sustainable forestry, yet genetic diversity will be lower than ever in GM plantations. Second, fungicide production engineered into GM trees to help them counter such afflictions as leaf rust and leaf spot diseases may dangerously alter soil ecology, decay processes and the ability for the GM trees to efficiently take up nutrients efficiently. Third, it has also been shown that GM virus resistance may accelerate the evolution of new diseases.

Trees genetically engineered to be tolerant of herbicides will further entrench the use of the chemicals in corporate and state attempts to create wooded landscapes free of "extraneous" species. Broad-spectrum herbicides damage soil structure and fertility through changes in root systems, soil insect populations and soil food webs. Herbicide use has also been shown to increase agricultural crops’ susceptibility to disease. As bacteria and fungi which promote soil health decline through herbicide use, vegetation-damaging bacteria and fungi move in. Ultimately, the use of other pesticides to combat fungal diseases may increase. Herbicides are also dangerous to birds and other animals that rely on a diversity of plants for food and shelter. Their use over prolonged periods diminishes food sources for the species dependent on them and provides ideal conditions for the evolution of herbicide-tolerant plants and the need for higher doses and even more hazardous chemicals. Despite manufacturers’ claims of ‘environmental friendliness’, moreover, glyphosate, the active ingredient of favoured plantation herbicides (including Round-Up), binds to soils in the same way as inorganic phosphates and may remain undegraded for years, endangering aquatic life. Glyphosate also disrupts the healthy balance of soil life and kills beneficial insects including wasps, lacewings and ladybirds. GM glyphosate-tolerant trees have been grown in field trials throughout the 1990’s in USA, Europe and South Africa.

Trees genetically modified for faster growth are likely to use up water even faster than the fast-growing trees currently used in industrial plantations, exacerbating problems of dryout and salinification which undermine the livelihoods of people living on adjacent land. Such trees will also suck up nutrients at a higher rate, necessitating the application of an ever-increasing volume of chemical fertilisers. Hence fast-growing GM trees may speed up the process by which previously rich land is impoverished. Trees genetically modified for fast growth will also be highly invasive of ecosystems for which they were not intended, quickly overtaking slower-growing non-GM trees in the competition for light and nutrients. They will thus threaten not only wild and endangered tree populations but also the plants, insects, fungi, animals and birds that have evolved to fill specialist niches dependent on those populations. For example, Swedish researchers engineered aspen with a gene from oats which controls the response of plants to day length. The resulting tree was able to grow during winter daylengths as well as summer. Had the GM aspen not unexpectedly lost its ability to withstand cold in the process, it would have had a huge advantage over other trees. Fast-growing trees with improved ability to take up nitrogen compounds from soil can also be an invasive ecological threat. A (non-GM) nitrogen-fixing tree introduced to Hawaii provides one cautionary example. The tree has pumped a normally nutrient-impoverished lava ecosystem so full of nutrients that a number of diverse and specially-adapted native plant communities have been driven out.

Protagonists see GM trees as a panacea for all sorts of planetary problems. The US Department of Energy and others have ambitions for carbon-dioxide absorbing GM trees to counter climate disruption. Similar grandiose proposals call for genetically "manipulating" terrestrial ecosystems so that they can temporarily store several times more carbon than at present, in order to make possible "continued large-scale use of fossil fuels." One result could be the creation of vast plantations of trees genetically engineered for both faster growth (to absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere more quickly) and higher lignin content (for more stable storage of the sequestered carbon). The consequences would include not only the social effects associated with the seizure and degradation of huge areas of forest lands and their soils, but also the entrenchment of a wasteful energy economy elsewhere. If allowed to decay or be used for fuel or paper, of course, the trees would quickly release the carbon they had temporarily sequestered back to the atmosphere.

Nowhere are the contradictions of the GM "fix" clearer than in the controversy over how to prevent GM organisms from spreading from industrial to neighbouring ecosystems. Because trees are even more genetically compatible with their wild relatives than highly-bred agricultural crops, GM escapes are especially worrisome in forestry. Isolation is virtually impossible. Plantations often border wild forest systems, and are often established on land cleared of old-growth forest.

Tree pollen can also travel vast distances. In Northwest India, windborne pine pollen was found 600 km from the nearest pine trees. Crucial forest pollinators are also notably indifferent to posted boundaries between GM and non-GM domains. Seeds are equally difficult to limit. In fact, it is seed or vegetative fragments which feature in the best-documented cases of long-distance gene flow, for example the establishment of plants on new continents. Many trees can also spread through the distribution of broken twigs, while others send suckers up from their root systems. A single aspen in Utah (USA), for example, boasts 47,000 trunks springing from its root system, and covers 42 hectares. Trees can also grow from stumps left after felling. In sum, trees may be even more adept at spreading their progeny than crops, and once in the wild, a single GM tree could survive for hundreds (perhaps thousands) of years.

Within the industrial plantation political system, for each fresh problem created by attempts to fix previous problems tends to stimulate funding to research yet further, higher-order fixes. The result is a continuous cascade of ingenuity-absorbing technical tweaks fated to generate still further problems.

Thus one "solution" to the dilemma of genetic invasion is to attempt to engineer trees for sterility to prevent gene flow. Predictably, however, this second-order fix leads immediately to difficulties requiring a third-order fix, and so on. GM sterility, for example, cannot be guaranteed to be permanent over generations and through environmental changes and disease stresses. Nor does engineered sterility prevent gene flow through horizontal transfer (for example to bacteria and fungi), or through vegetative propagation, such as twig and stump re-growth or suckers. Moreover, stands of sterile trees devoid of birds, insects or mammals that rely on tree seeds, pollen or nectar for food could disrupt population dynamics, with severe impacts on adjacent wild systems.

Current regulatory requirements for risk assessment are a further example of an attempt at a higher-order technical fix – one quickly beset by its own limitations and dilemmas. For one thing, much of the data which adequate risk assessment of GM trees demands is unobtainable. For instance, in practice it is not possible to measure accurately to what extent GM plants or their genes might spread, simply because of the sheer size of the area which would need to be thoroughly examined for migrants. Second, serious risk assessment would exclude GM trees from precisely those uses for which they are being principally developed. For example, Professor Kenneth Raffa at the University of Wisconsin suggests that risks related to the evolution of insect resistance can be limited if large or homogenous plantations are avoided – a recommendation inherently at odds with the industry’s requirements

In addition, the long life cycles of trees and the range of seasonal and other environmental stresses that they have to withstand entail that any genetic modifications made to them may be unstable. This too militates against reliable risk assessment. Each stage of a tree’s lifecycle is characterised by a cascade of previously unused genes or gene combinations – those that act in concert to direct flower formation or fruit ripening, for example. Determining how these interact with the engineered gene could take several years to ascertain — a timescale unlikely to be acceptable to shareholders or even many environmental risk assessors. Unforeseen results are common. Aspen, for instance, will usually not flower before its seventh year, and German authorities gave consent for a five-year open field trial of GM aspen trees on the assumption that they would not flower before the trial had finished. Unexpectedly, however, one of the trees started flowering in its third year, despite pre-trial findings hinting that GM aspen would grow more slowly than non-GM aspen.

Given the threat to the development of forestry biotech which rational assessment would pose, it is small wonder that proponents such as Simon Bright of Zeneca Agrochemicals are driven on occasion to articulate the defensive demand that questions about GM trees be "framed in a way that gets a positive answer, or that a positive answer is allowed." The agencies currently undertaking risk assessment of GM trees are often the ones with a vested interest in supplying just that positive answer. In Canada the Canadian Forest Service both promotes GM research and checks for risks, while Oregon State University’s TGERC program, whose future lies in promoting GM trees, is precisely the body the US Environmental Protection Agency has chosen to assess the dangers of the technology. This pattern hardly bodes well for forest ecosystems and the people whose livelihoods depend directly on them.

The framework through which genetically-engineered trees are being developed is profoundly biased against social arrangements which promote and rely on biological diversity. This framework is also riven by destructive tendencies which chains of technical refinements are likely to be powerless to overcome. Tackling the challenge GM trees pose means tackling the industrial and bureaucratic tradition which seeks the radical simplification of landscapes. That entails alliance-building with groups working against and outside that tradition.

The issues raised by GM trees are similar to those raised by GM crops. Yet in many ways, genetic modification in forestry is an even more serious issue than in agriculture. Trees’ long lives and largely undomesticated status, their poorly understood biology and lifecycles, the complexity and fragility of forest ecosystems, and corporate and state control over enormous areas of forest land on which GM trees could be planted combine to create risks which are unique. The biosafety and social implications of the application of genetic engineering to forestry are grave enough to warrant an immediate halt to releases of GM trees.

Main Sources:

* J Scott (1999) Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed, New Haven: Yale University Press

* R Carrere and L Lohmann (1996), Pulping the South: Industrial Tree Plantations and the World Paper Economy, London: Zed.

* Environmental Improvement Department, Northern Development Foundation, Project for Ecological Recovery, Northern Watershed Development Project, Northern Farmers Network, and villagers from three Northern Thai communities (1997), Raayngaan Phol Kaan Wijay Rueang Khwaam Laaklaai Thaang Chiiwaphaap lae Rabop Niwet nai Khat Paa Chum Chon Phaak Nuea Tawn Bon, Chiang Mai.

* F Campbell (2000), Genetically Engineered Trees: Questions without Answers, Washington: American Lands: http://www.americanlands.org/Getrees.htm

* K Raffa (1989) Genetic eng’g of trees to enhance resistance to insects. Bioscience 39(8):524-535

* T Mullin and S Bertrand (1998), Environmental release of transgenic trees in Canada - potential benefits and assessment of biosafety. The Forestry Chronicle 74(2):203

* T Tzifira et al (1998) Forest-tree biotechnology: genetic transformation and its application to future forests. Trends in Biotechnology 16:439-446;

* 3C Associates (2000) Genetic engineering in Forestry. A business briefing for pulp and paper professionals. 3C Associates, Oxon, UK.