Twenty years after the founding of the Campaign to STOP GE Trees, groups in the Campaign are launching a new website & target="_blank" rel="noopener">video, among other tools, to accompany the relaunch of their effort to prevent the release of genetically engineered trees into the environment.
The goal of the Campaign is to protect forests and to defend the rights of communities and Indigenous Peoples -for whom forests are a fundamental part of their life space- from the unknown and irreversible risks of genetically engineered (GE) trees and large scale tree plantations, erroneously called “planted forests”.
This re-launch is part of a re-doubled effort to stop the release of GE trees into the natural environment in the United States. Read the press release: Researchers Seeking Approval for the Unprecedented Release of Genetically Engineered Trees into Forests to Spread Unchecked and Contaminate Wild Trees. We invite you to join these two petitions: Help Stop Planned Release of Genetically Engineered Trees into Forests! and NO to genetic engineering in our forests!
The Campaign's International and North American Steering Committee members, along with the list of over 440 groups from nearly fifty countries that endorse the call for a global rejection of genetically engineered trees and their removal from all outdoor plantings, including field trials, can be found on the new campaign website: stopgetrees.org
The World Rainforest Movement (WRM) is the southern focal point for the Campaign. We have been involved in addressing the threats of GE trees in the Global South since 2004.
Besides asking attention for and collecting information about the growing problem of GE trees in the global South, WRM and Global Justice Ecology Project, jointly with national organizations, have been promoting in the past few years coordinated actions and exchanges of resistance experiences among communities and organizations in Brazil and Chile. Brazil was the first country in Latin America to approve the use of a GE eucalyptus for commercial planting in spite of widespread national and international protests, and new company requests are under analysis. In Chile, research with pines and eucalyptus has been done some years ago and, in Argentina, some research is also being done with eucalyptus.
Genetically engineering of trees only benefit the biotechnology, the plantations and the pulp and paper industries. For communities living inside and nearby plantation areas, GE trees mean an intensification of the already well known negative impacts on land, water, biodiversity, livelihoods and cultures.