Frankentrees Engineers Confronted by Protesters in Washington

SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER
http://seattlep-i.nwsource.com/local/32359_trees23.shtml

Debate rooted in biotech trees
Genetic changes disrupt nature, protesters claim
Monday, July 23, 2001
By TOM PAULSON
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

STEVENSON -- Activists who want to stop the release of genetically
engineered trees protested outside the Skamania Lodge yesterday as
scientists arrived in preparation for a meeting on forest biotechnology.
The two organizers of the conference have been the targets of so-called
"eco-terrorism" in the Pacific Northwest by members of the shadowy Earth
Liberation Front.

Yesterday, about 50 peaceful protesters blew whistles and held signs,
occasionally confronting scientists about the wisdom of genetically
engineering the forests.

"Genetic engineering is not just an extension of traditional breeding, as
some of these scientists keep saying," said Mark Des Marets, an organizer of
the protest and a member of a Portland-based group called Northwest
Resistance Against Genetic Engineering. "This is going to be very disruptive
to the ecosystem."

Toby Bradshaw, a University of Washington geneticist who studies altered
poplar trees, said, "It's clear that there needs to be an informed public
debate on this." Bradshaw's lab was set on fire May 21 by people claiming to
represent the ELF.

"We'd like to bring together all the different perspectives and see if we
can all agree on a set of recommendations," said Bradshaw, who noted that
strong critics of biotech have been invited to speak at the meeting. "As
scientists, we're naïve enough to think reason can prevail."

Steve Strauss, an Oregon State University researcher who genetically alters
poplar trees, had his test plots of poplar trees cut down or killed in
similar dark-of-night protests. Strauss and Bradshaw organized the tree
biotech meeting before the attacks.

On the same day Bradshaw's lab was torched, a poplar farm in Clatskanie,
Ore., affiliated with Strauss' work was also set on fire at the same time in
the early morning by means of a similar incendiary device. Federal
law-enforcement officials say they have suspects in the arson cases.

Trees are new to the public debate on genetic engineering, say those on all
sides of the issue. While genetically engineered food crops have received a
significant amount of attention, the use of biotechnology in the forest has
been largely ignored.

That changed with the simultaneous arson attacks on the UW's Center for
Urban Horticulture and at the Clatskanie poplar farm. The ELF actions
brought widespread public attention to tree biotechnology -- a welcome turn
of events for the activists, even if they condemned the violent means of
accomplishing it.

"Scientists need to recognize that their research can have social and
political effects," Des Marets said. Before the well-publicized attacks by
ELF, he said, the scientific community and biotech industry had demonstrated
little interest in a real dialogue.

Hal Salwasser, a keynote speaker for last night's opening ceremony and dean
of forestry at OSU, agreed with Des Marets that the scientific community has
not done enough to encourage a public dialogue on the risks and benefits of
biotechnology.

"That's one of the reasons for this conference," Salwasser said. "We've got
to deal with the safety concerns."

This isn't a debate about whether or not to mess with nature, Salwasser
contended, but about how best to mess with it.

"That's not a question for science," he said. It's a social, political and
ethical question with no easy answer. The pressure on natural resources is
intensifying as the planet's population swells, he said, and doing nothing
will only guarantee more environmental devastation.

Both Bradshaw and Des Marets say they want to protect and preserve the
crucial ecological role of the natural tree. They just couldn't disagree
more on how to do that.

There may be no more powerful symbol of nature than a tree. Most trees are
still truly wild creatures. Cows aren't wild. Corn isn't even close to its
natural "wild type," but a genetic mutant created by thousands of years of
selective breeding.

But trees have stubbornly resisted human domestication. Even the trees
constrained by timber companies to grow uniformly in plantation forests
retain most of their wild and unruly characteristics. But this is also what
makes them so inefficient to grow as a harvestable crop.

"If we can increase the productivity of the trees used by industry, we can
take some pressure off the (natural) forests," Bradshaw said.

Bradshaw works with poplars because they are among the more agreeable to
genetic manipulation. He's looking into altering the trees' genes to see if
he can get them to grow faster, repel pests and maybe adopt some specific
characteristics desired by certain industries (fewer branches and knots for
structural wood; better chemical composition to reduce the use of chemical
processing in paper production).

Genetic engineering, Bradshaw said, could help the environment by making a
clear distinction between trees grown for industrial use and the trees we
grow for our natural forests.

Baloney, say Des Marets and other critics of the technology.

Academics in this field get most of their research money from industry, they
say, arguing that all of these attempts to present their science as a tool
for protecting the environment or helping poor farmers is just window
dressing.

"Trees are very complex organisms," said Des Marets, noting that some trees
have a genome (entire genetic code) that is eight times bigger than the
human genome.

Scientists don't know enough about genetics yet to predict what will happen
when a new gene is introduced into an organism, Des Marets said. Because of
the unpredictable nature of genetic engineering, Des Marets said, many
researchers try to allay concerns by engineering their experimental trees to
be sterile -- so bad genes don't spread in pollen or seeds.

If this works, he said, these genetically engineered forests will be a
"biological desert" that can no longer provide the seeds, cones and pollen
that birds, insects and others in the ecosystem depend upon. But it won't
work, Des Marets contended, noting a German study of aspens showed
scientists still don't know how to control reproduction.

In the aspen study, he said, the trees were engineered to delay flowering --
reproducing -- so they would be harvested before they could spread their
genes. The trees actually flowered earlier than they would have naturally,
Des Marets said.

Bradshaw said he's not arguing there's no risk to genetic engineering. He's
not claiming scientists are totally in control of what they are doing.
That's not the way science -- or the world in general -- works.

If we simply want to protect biodiversity, he said, we should abandon all
our farms and go back to our hunter-gathering approach toward food and
natural resources.

"Do we think having everyone out there harvesting seeds, nuts and wood would
be good for the environment?" Bradshaw said.

The question, he contended, is what is the best use of biotechnology given
the goals of sustainable forestry, biodiversity and the many other social
and political goals related to forest economics.

"As we move forward with domestication in forestry, we'd like to avoid the
mistakes we've made with our approach to agriculture," he said.

Biotechnology is just a tool, Bradshaw said, that we can use for good or for
ill.