Cultivating biotech trees.

* Cultivating biotech trees: While the spread of genetically modified crops has raised concerns around the world, research into biotech trees has increased exponentially in the last few years with little attention, according to separate reports by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and the American Lands Alliance. In the United States alone, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has issued more than 300 permits for trials of genetically engineered trees, and officials are expected to grant permission to grow the trees commercially by 2005. According to the WWF report, commercial-scale trials may already be taking place in China.

By altering specific genetic traits, scientists hope to "make" trees that will out-perform their natural counterparts. For instance, the fruit industry is promoting research on trees that will have resistance to viruses and diseases that now cost growers millions of dollars each year. Timber and paper manufacturers are developing aspen and cottonwood trees that contain less lignin--the tough, connective tissue that holds trees together--to make the pulp easier to process and to reduce the need for polluting chemicals. And researchers are engineering trees with built-in salt tolerance that could be planted in many of the world's arid regions.

Although growing more trees faster, with improved tolerance to disease and extreme climate, might seem like the ideal solution to deforestation, pollution, and other problems, genetically engineered tree plantations could cultivate serious environmental dilemmas. Faith Thompson Campbell of the American Lands Alliance reports that "experimenting with native trees in the U.S. and Canada virtually guarantees gene drift." The drifting of novel bio-engineered genes into wild populations is a serious threat to biodiversity, potentially allowing altered trees to outcompete native populations and disrupting ecosystems dependent on those trees, according to the July 2000 report released by the alliance. Genetically modified trees already have been released into the wild in a number of places, including Israel, Chile, and New Zealand.

Critics of biotechnology's rapid development predict that the same risks posed by genetically engineered crops could be magnified in tree species. Concerns that plants engineered to contain pesticidal properties will harm non-target insects and birds are amplified because trees distribute pollen further and they remain in the environment significantly longer than seasonal crops like corn or soybeans. In addition, trees are subject to a greater variety of environmental stresses, which could affect their "behavior" later on, according to the WWF study. For example, genetically engineered trees might act "weedy," driving out native tree species, or they might absorb more nutrients from the soil than traditional varieties, threatening future productivity of the land.

Because little is known about the long-term consequences of genetically engineered trees on the environment, the American Lands Alliance, WWF, Greenpeace, and other environmental groups have called for a global moratorium on their release. According to these groups, it is better to reduce the "need" for fast growing trees by encouraging consumer responsibility and less dependence on virgin wood and paper products. At the same time, they assert that more research and more regulations are needed before trees are manufactured in laboratories, rather than forests.