Earth Equity News

Control of Genetically Engineered Trees a Hot Issue at Bonn U.N. Conference. By Stephen Leahy, IPS, May 29, 2009. "An intense North-South debate over genetically engineered trees has sidetracked delegates at a U.N. conference on biodiversity in Bonn: African nations want a global moratorium, while a few rich countries led by Canada say it should be up to individual countries to regulate. While 168 nations that are part of the U.N. Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) debate the issue, a new two-year U.N.-funded study warns that developing countries simply don't have the capacity to manage or monitor biotechnology... Meanwhile, the biofuels boom has sparked concern that research on genetically engineering trees for use as biofuels is ramping up, with field trials in the U.S., Canada, China, New Zealand and elsewhere. Before the Bonn conference began, 46 environmental groups from two dozen countries called on the government delegates to accept a proposal to suspend all releases of GE trees into the environment 'due to their extreme ecological and social threats'... The risk of interbreeding between GE trees and normal trees is high... Faster growing... trees resistant to common pests could easily become an invasive species and dominate natural forests."