GE Eucalyptus Trees To Be Planted In U.S. South

[Dryadia2]

This article came in an email:

GE Eucalyptus Trees To Be Planted In U.S. South
http://forestry.about.com/b/2009/06/16/ ... -south.htm

ArborGen made a request to the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) to plant 260,000 flowering genetically engineered (GE) eucalyptus trees over 330 acres in seven states. USDA's Animal Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) is processing this request. Several plantations already exist in Florida and Alabama.

The tree is Eucalyptus grandis x urophylla. The plant is a cold-hardy eucalyptus that ArborGen is developing for future commercial purposes, mainly pulp for paper.

Several environmental groups, including Global Justice Ecology Project (GJEP), are fighting the project. GJEP contents that introduced Eucalyptus hybrids "are quite likely" to become invasive. "In other countries where eucalyptus have been introduced, they are well known for escaping and colonizing native ecosystems."

Eucalyptus in Florida, Bugwood.org, E. Barnard

I grew up in Southern California where there are several varieties of Eucalyptus trees that are quite common. They fit in so well with the climate, and thrive there, as well as other invasive species of trees, plants, etc.; and I'm not sure how much this has impacted the native trees and plants being encroached upon.

Now that Genetically Engineered trees might possibly be introduced to areas in the South that already have many invasive species, I'm wondering how much more the native flora will be affected.

What are your thoughts on this?

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[Aurora]

I'd be worried, i feel it's always a risk to introduce non native species to an area as you can not predict how they will interact with their new surroundings. I have found that introduced species tend to outcompete natives due to a lack of natural controls that would be found in their home environments (eg, a lack of animals to eat a certain plant).

Add to this that they have been modified genetically and that there is no concrete way to tell how this modificaion will affect the trees growing and reproductive habits.

It is interesting to note however that Eucalyptus species in general have developed over time to need fire as the process to kick start the germination of their seeds, which could explain their sucess in the southern California region.

[Corwen]

Eucalyptus is tough and grows where nothing else will, so Eucalyptus plantations are expanding all over the world. Sometimes it a good thing, to stabilised soils in damaged ecosystems and provide essential firewood for local people, but there are problems with them. Eucalypts toxify the soil in a similar way to some conifers and so make it hard for anything else to grow. I've seen Eucalyptus plantations in Galicia in Spain where the only life for miles was Eucalyptus, no birds, no other plants or flowers. I appreciate the need for paper but if we were a little less greedy we could sustainably crop normal deciduous forest which would be much better for the planet.