Amidst Opposition, a Conference and Industry in Crisis

Amidst Oppo­si­tion, a Con­fer­ence and Indus­try in Crisis

- by Will Ben­ning­ton, Glob­al Jus­tice Ecol­o­gy Project 

(Pho­to: Orin Langelle/photolangelle.org)

Hun­dreds of activists descend­ed upon Asheville, North Car­oli­na in May for a week of major protests at the inter­na­tion­al bi-annu­al Tree Biotech­nol­o­gy con­fer­ence. The con­fer­ence, host­ed by the Inter­na­tion­al Union of For­est Research Orga­ni­za­tions (IUFRO), is a major gath­er­ing for genet­i­cal­ly engi­neered (GE) tree indus­try rep­re­sen­ta­tives, researchers and pol­i­cy makers.

The first vic­to­ry came sev­er­al weeks before the con­fer­ence, when a field trip to an active forestry site was can­celled. Protest orga­niz­ers believe the field trip was can­celled due to the threat of protests.

On Mon­day, May 26, the first full day of the con­fer­ence, two Asheville res­i­dents dis­rupt­ed a talk by Bel­gian tree engi­neer Wout Boer­jian titled, “Engi­neer­ing Trees for the Biore­fin­ery.” Lau­ra Soren­son, a grand­moth­er, and Steven Nor­ris, a farmer and pro­fes­sor, were both arrest­ed after the disruption.

“We took dig­ni­fied action today to direct­ly con­front the grow­ing cor­po­rate con­trol over our seeds, forests, and com­mu­ni­ties,” Nor­ris said. “We are send­ing a crys­tal clear mes­sage to the GE tree indus­try and its investors—expect resistance.”

GE trees for biofuels

Activists are par­tic­u­lar­ly con­cerned with the Unit­ed States Depart­ment of Agri­cul­ture’s recent announce­ment that they are prepar­ing an Envi­ron­men­tal Impact State­ment regard­ing the dereg­u­la­tion of cold-tol­er­ant genet­i­cal­ly engi­neered euca­lyp­tus trees devel­oped by GE tree com­pa­ny Arbor­Gen, which has offices in the US, Brazil and Aus­tralia. They are joint­ly owned by some of the largest tim­ber cor­po­ra­tions in the world—Inter­na­tion­al Paper, Mead­West­va­co and Rubi­con.

Rubi­con CEO Luke Mori­ar­ty has stat­ed that Arbor­Gen plans to sell half a bil­lion GE euca­lyp­tus seedlings annu­al­ly for bioen­er­gy plan­ta­tions across the US South. Euca­lyp­tus is high­ly inva­sive, flam­ma­ble, and extreme­ly water-inten­sive. If per­fect­ed in the US, these GE freeze tol­er­ant trees will expand the dis­as­ter of euca­lyp­tus plan­ta­tions around the world to regions cur­rent­ly too cold for con­ven­tion­al euca­lyp­tus trees.

A recent boom in the bio­fu­el indus­try through­out the region has activists par­tic­u­lar­ly con­cerned that plan­ta­tions of GE euca­lyp­tus, pine, and poplar will play a major role in feed­ing new wood pel­let facil­i­ties, bio­mass incin­er­a­tors, and cel­lu­losic bio­fu­el plants.

Through­out the week, mem­bers of Glob­al Jus­tice Ecol­o­gy Project and Earth First! spoke with sev­er­al con­fer­ence atten­dees. Many of them whole-heart­ed­ly sup­port an expan­sion of the new “bioe­con­o­my,” includ­ing the use of fast-grow­ing GE trees to sup­ply demand. One Vir­ginia Tech researcher acci­den­tal­ly recit­ed ArborGen’s mot­to, “more wood, less land,” while simul­ta­ne­ous­ly jus­ti­fy­ing the use of GE trees and insist­ing that indus­try does not influ­ence aca­d­e­m­ic research.

Arbor­Gen and their Brazil­ian com­peti­tor Futura­Gene were major spon­sors of the con­fer­ence. Both are seek­ing gov­ern­ment approval for the com­mer­cial release of their GE tree “prod­ucts,” despite a deci­sion by the UN Con­ven­tion on Bio­log­i­cal Diver­si­ty in 2008 that warned coun­tries of the dan­gers of GE trees and urged them to use the Pre­cau­tion­ary Approach regard­ing GE trees, includ­ing con­fin­ing all tri­als to the greenhouse.

Mon­san­to and Arbor­Gen – Con­nect­ing the dots

A day before the con­fer­ence began, on Sat­ur­day, May 25, mil­lions of peo­ple around the world par­tic­i­pat­ed in the March Against Mon­san­to. In Asheville, Arbor­Gen was a major focus of the March Against Mon­san­to, attend­ed by over 1,000 people.

Tom Llewellyn of the REAL Coop­er­a­tive drew the links between Mon­san­to and Arbor­Gen dur­ing the march. “Many Mon­san­to employ­ees have gone to work at Arbor­Gen, includ­ing many of their exec­u­tive staff. Mon­san­to was even an ear­ly part­ner in the for­est biotech­nol­o­gy ven­ture that lat­er became ArborGen.”

On Tues­day, May 28, over 200 activists from around the US descend­ed upon the con­fer­ence cen­ter dur­ing the largest protest to date against the GE tree indus­try. Cit­ing con­cerns over the dev­as­tat­ing impacts that GE euca­lyp­tus, pine and poplar plan­ta­tions would have on the bio­di­verse forests of the world, the crowd ral­lied for four hours out­side of the con­fer­ence, chant­i­ng slo­gans such as “GE trees—tear ‘em up, ArborGen—shut ‘em down!”

Link­ing the GE tree indus­try to con­tro­ver­sial GMO seed com­pa­nies like Mon­san­to could have a crip­pling effect on invest­ment and pub­lic accep­tance of field tri­als and com­mer­cial applications.

Indus­try in crisis

As protests raged out­side, Futura­Gene, a Brazilian/Israeli com­pa­ny, held a pan­el dis­cus­sion titled, “For­est Biotech at the Cross­roads: What Does the Future Hold?” The pan­el was mired by debate around pub­lic oppo­si­tion to the GE tree industry.

Adam Costan­za of the Insti­tute for For­est Biotech­nol­o­gy and for­mer­ly with Inter­na­tion­al Paper explained his inter­pre­ta­tion of the pub­lic’s oppo­si­tion to GE trees. “Pub­lic per­cep­tion is not aware­ness,” he argued. “Regard­ing those with eth­i­cal ques­tions [about GE trees], facts are not use­ful for them,” adding that “con­cerns are not based on science.”

On Thurs­day, three demon­stra­tors were bru­tal­ly arrest­ed after attempt­ing to wrap a bus full of con­fer­ence atten­dees in “GMO cau­tion tape.” The bus­es were head­ed to a din­ner at the Bilt­more Estate, a pil­lar of mod­ern indus­tri­al forestry in the US.

Johan­na Ander­son, a local orga­niz­er with Kat­u­ah Earth First!, was among those arrest­ed. “Trees should not be burned for fuel. Those propos­ing bioen­er­gy say it is a solu­tion to cli­mate change, which is a dis­turb­ing lie,” she said. “Mono­cul­ture plan­ta­tions for bioen­er­gy are already dis­plac­ing Indige­nous Peo­ples and local com­mu­ni­ties all over the world, and will have a major impact on rur­al liveli­hoods and bio­di­ver­si­ty here in the US South.”

A grass­roots cam­paign to pre­vent GE tree plan­ta­tions from dev­as­tat­ing the south­ern US was launched with the week of action against the Tree Biotech­nol­o­gy con­fer­ence. Activists are com­mit­ted to stop­ping all pro­posed appli­ca­tions of GE trees in the region.

For Asheville res­i­dents, the impacts of burn­ing trees to cre­ate elec­tric­i­ty are extreme­ly rel­e­vant, as Progress Ener­gy—the city’s major utility—has a deal pend­ing to pur­chase elec­tric­i­ty pro­duced by Flori­da-based Eco­Gen. Eco­Gen plans to estab­lish euca­lyp­tus plan­ta­tions in Flori­da to fuel twen­ty bio­mass incin­er­a­tors and pel­let facil­i­ties across the region. ArborGen’s cold-tol­er­ant euca­lyp­tus would enable the expan­sion of these plan­ta­tions as far north as South Carolina.

After her arrest on Mon­day, Lau­ra Soren­son said, “We know that GE trees are a dis­as­ter for forests and bio­di­ver­si­ty. With pre­dic­tions of wors­en­ing extreme weath­er in our region, the last thing we need are high­ly flam­ma­ble and inva­sive plan­ta­tions of water-hun­gry euca­lyp­tus trees. As a grand­moth­er, I see no future in this for my grandchildren.”

The Tree Biotech­nol­o­gy 2015 con­fer­ence will take place in Flo­rence, Italy.

The week of protests against the Tree Biotech­nol­o­gy 2013 con­fer­ence was orga­nized by the Cam­paign to STOP GE Trees, Kat­u­ah Earth First!, Croatan Earth First!, REAL Coop­er­a­tive, Ever­glades Earth First!, Glob­al For­est Coali­tion, Bio­fu­el­watch and Glob­al Jus­tice Ecol­o­gy Project.

For more pho­tos and cov­er­age from the week of protests, vis­it treebiotech2013.org

To sign the peti­tion demand­ing a ban on GE trees, vis­it globaljusticeecology.org/petition.php