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Belgium:
Field trials planned of GM poplar trees for ethanol
Late last year, the
Flanders Institute for Biotechnology (VIB), a life sciences research
institution applied for permission to establish a field trial
of genetically modified poplar trees in Belgium. The GM trees
would have modified lignin content, aimed at making production
of ethanol easier.
VIB was established
in 1996. Funded largely by the Flemish government, it employs
more than one thousand scientists. VIB aims to produce scientific
discoveries with "industrial application potential",
which it patents and either signs agreements with existing companies
or establishes start-up companies to develop the discoveries into
"market-ready products". By 2006, VIB had patents on
100 of its discoveries.
VIB has a communications
team responsible for producing information targeted at educators,
journalists and politicians. It sets up competitions for schools,
provides teaching materials, books, presentations and exhibitions.
Materials include titles like "What is bioengineering?",
"The Safety of Genetically Engineered Crops", and "Xenotransplantation:
the animal in the man...". In these glossy brochures VIB
promotes biotechnology, plays down the risks and portrays scientists
as neutral experts interested only in the good of society. Meanwhile,
VIB lobbies politicians to relax regulations covering the use
of human cells and GM crops.
According to the
application submitted to the Belgian authorities, VIB plans to
plant GM trees on a 0.24 hectare experimental plot in University
of Ghent Science and Industry park in Zwijnaarde. The trees are
planned to be planted in May 2008 and the experiment is to last
until the end of 2014.
The genus Populus
includes about 30 species of trees, which are native to most of
the Northern Hemisphere, with common names including poplar, aspen
and cottonwood. It is the scientists' favourite tree for genetic
experimentation. The world's first release of genetically modified
trees was a field trial of herbicide resistant GM poplars in 1988
in Belgium. Since then, well over half of the 200-plus GM tree
trials worldwide involved poplar trees. In 2006, Populus trichocarpa
became the first tree to have its full DNA code sequenced.
The only GM trees
to be commercially released are poplars - GM poplars have been
planted in China since 2002. No records are kept of where the
trees are planted or how many have been planted. In 2004, Xue
Dayuan of the Nanjing Institute of Environmental Science told
the China Daily that genes from the GM poplars had already appeared
in natural varieties growing nearby.
The risks of genetic
contamination are huge, given the large and widespread population
of wild relatives. Poplar trees can spread through suckers growing
from roots. Pollen and seed are spread on the wind "possibly
on rather long distance", notes VIB. However, VIB states
that, "seed regeneration is not often observed as ecological
conditions necessary to seed germination and plantlet development
are seldom met." The words "not often" and "seldom"
are hardly reassuring, given that the impact of genetic contamination
in non-GM poplar trees is unknown, but potentially devastating.
Yet VIB states that
"The environmental impact from the release is expected to
be zero, since the GM poplars are not going to flower and any
suckers from superficial roots will be destroyed." True,
the trees to be planted will be female clones and will produce
no pollen. It is probably also true that if the trees flower,
VIB's researchers will remove the flowers. But the environmental
impact of this trial will not be zero.
VIB ignores the fact
that the purpose of the trial plantation is to develop GM trees
to produce ethanol. To be commercially viable, plantations of
GM poplars would need to cover vast areas of land. If large scale
GM tree plantations were to be established, genetic contamination
of natural varieties of poplars, aspen and cottonwoods would be
inevitable.
VIB makes no mention
of the impacts that industrial tree plantations have on local
communities and their environments. Nor does VIB consider the
fact that growing trees (or any other type of agrofuel crop) to
produce ethanol on an industrial scale will increase conflicts
over land. If forests and grasslands are not to be destroyed (which
would release huge amounts of carbon) the tree plantations will
have to be planted on agricultural land. This will increase the
price of food encouraging corporations and farmers to clear land
elsewhere (including forests and grasslands). Two recent papers
in Science magazine demonstrate that all the major agrofuels cause
more greenhouse gas emissions than conventional fuels, once the
emissions caused by land clearance and producing the fuels are
taken into account.
The people promoting
agrofuels and GM trees as a solution to climate change tend to
be scientists whose research benefits from promoting agrofuels
or GM trees. "Biomass represents an abundant carbon-neutral
renewable resource for the production of bioenergy and biomaterials,
and its enhanced use would address several societal needs,"
claims an article published in Science magazine in January 2006.
What's missing from such statements is a comparison of agrofuels
with, say, large scale solar and wind power combined with high
voltage direct current cables and hydrogen fuel cells. These technologies
can be used immediately and would massively reduce greenhouse
gas emissions. Unlike GM trees.
By Chris Lang, http://chrislang.org
