From Steve Strauss, Oregon State University, USA,
[email protected]
Please consider these ideas for discussion.
1) KEEP LOCAL OPTIONS OPEN, AVOID BLANKET DECISIONS. Wise management seeks to have available as many tools as possible so that the right ones can be chosen for specific circumstances. Genetically modified (GM) trees will be suitable and safe in some places and for some purposes, and inappropriate in others. As all practitioners know, the only place they will find use, for the foreseeable future, is in intensively managed plantations--whether they be industry or community owned. Why do we seek some kind of global consensus about use of genetically engineered plants and trees? Why not let decisions be made locally as much as possible, based on local needs, economics, and environmental considerations. Can the obvious goal of some organizations to stigmatize use of GM trees everywhere, as though they were a central ruling body and as though forests were one kind of entity managed for one kind of product, be considered useful and ethical ? Is it appropriate for the extremely risk-averse policies of some parties in the economically well-off developed world to drive the agenda for the developing world?
2) HERBICIDE RESISTANCE CAN BE USEFUL. Anyone who has managed a plantation knows that efficient control of weeds is critical for survival and economic return. As a result, herbicides are often used, including in the developing world. Those that are inexpensive, have a broad spectrum of activity, and that show low non-target toxicity and rapid breakdown in the environment are preferred--and indeed are widely employed. Apart from gene escape in cases where herbicide resistance would create significant problems elsewhere, which can be considered on a case by case basis, is there anything fundamentally wrong with herbicide resistant trees so that the benefits of careful herbicide use can be maximized ?
3) FLOWERING CONTROL CAN BE BENEFICIAL. Plantations, even agroforestry or multispecies plantations, have extremely low biological diversity compared to the wild communities they replace. But they are very efficient producers of wood. From an ecological viewpoint, we want as few of them as possible on the global lanscape to grow the wood needed. In such places, are GM trees, that are more efficient in their economic production, not desirable ?
Is prevention of flowering to increase wood production, to reduce the risk of the spread of exotic plantation species, and as a means to keep certain transgenes (e.g., herbicide resistance) within plantations, not also desirable ? Is the small additional reduction in diversity for insect pollinated/seed feeding species not likely to be tolerable in most places, given the very low diversity already present in these tree-farms ? Isn't the effective zoning of lands into wild/lightly managed vs. intensively managed lands the best way to promote the joint goals of economic wood production and regional and global ecological diversity in the developing world ? Won't the higher cost of GM planting stock, and their specialized value (e.g., herbicide resistance, modified wood for pulping), greatly limit the extent to which such non-flowering trees are grown, especially in the cash-poor developing world--avoiding the kind of "all forests are sterile" scenario put forward by some parties ?
[To contribute to this conference, send your message to [email protected] For further information on the Electronic Forum on Biotechnology in Food and Agriculture see http://www.fao.org/biotech/forum.asp ]
-----Original Message-----
From: Biotech-Mod2
Sent: Wednesday, May 10, 2000 4:41 PM
To: '[email protected]'
Subject: 4: Re: Rotation time and biotechnology for developing countries
I strongly concur with Dr. Lindgren's comments [May 4], and this fits well with industry plans for use of GM trees.
It is only in the short rotations common in intensively grown plantation trees in the developing world (e.g., eucalyptus in South America, Africa), and in intensively managed plantations of the developed world (e.g., poplars and pine plantations in New Zealand and the southeastern USA), that there are serious plans to use GM trees. There, the shorter time frame (e.g., 6 to 30 years), rapid growth rates, and capacity for monitoring (e.g., to assess stability of non-flowering trees, should they be deployed), are reasonable to expect.
Steve Strauss, Oregon State University, USA
[email protected]
[To contribute to this conference, send your message to [email protected] For further information on the Electronic Forum on Biotechnology in Food and Agriculture see http://www.fao.org/biotech/forum.asp ]