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Designer trees branch out
ASEE Prism, Sep 2001
The world's $400 billion paper and pulp industry is growing like an unshaded weed. Indeed, the demand for paper products is set to outpace supply in less than a decade. To Ronald Sederoff, director of the forest biotechnology group at North Carolina State University, that means the earth's natural forests will come under increasing risk, an environmental nightmare. And to him, the best solution-perhaps the only one-is developing genetically altered (GA) trees grown especially for the paper industry. Field tests of designer trees with specific traits useful for mass timber production are already underway. Some would grow more rapidly (and also more quickly photosynthesize carbon dioxide, a major pollutant); some would be naturally immune to diseases and insects; some could be more easily turned to pulp without using the toxic chemicals needed today. If twice as many trees can be grown on less land, that will save millions of acres of natural forests, Sederoff says. The U.S. Department of Agriculture, which regulates the tests, is expected to approve the first commercial plantations of bioengineered trees by 2004.
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But Sederoff says the process could be dragged out by environmental activists opposed to GA trees. Some have taken direct action, and test sites have been vandalized. Last March, for example, a group called GenetiX Alert claimed responsibility for destroying 570 test trees at Oregon State University. And other groups have used the federal approval process to delay the commercial use of GA trees. Sederoff is scathing in his response: "There is tacit approval of destroying test sites by many non-governmental organizations. And the regulatory agencies view it as a political process and are willing to compromise." That's an "outrage," he says, because it is a problem for science. Creating hybrid trees is nothing new, Sederoff says, and the trees produced using bioengineering are no different from those using traditional methods. But the latter incites no protests. Genetic engineering can give scientists quicker results. A GA tree can reach maturity in a year, rather than in a human lifetime.
Opponents fear that any genetically engineered trait added to a tree could be harmful if mixed with natural trees. Fast-growing trees are not as sturdy and aren't built to last. Sterile trees may rob wildlife of food sources. Pest- or herbicide-resistant trees mixed with natural trees may create mutant super weeds that will eventually push out natural weeds. "Their arguments are largely nonsense," Sederoff sniffs. Singer Joni Mitchell once predicted in song the need for a tree museum. Sederoff says many trees may face such a fate if science isn't used to ease the paper industry's voracious appetite for pulp.
Copyright American Society for Engineering Education Sep 2001
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