- EucalyptusAustralian trees are good for making paper. They are terrible for just about everything else – soil, insects, plants, and waterthe trees from down under support fewer insects, birds and other animals endemic to the United States. Worse, they create toxic conditions in the soil and their canopies block out sunlight for underlying plants. They hog water and yet easily catch fire, relying on fire to spread their seeds.
2. Benefit of this technology
- ArborGen points out that the high growth rate will allow the company to grow more wood on less land, which could provide a boost to the region’s timber exports. What’s more, the wood could potentially serve as a biofuel feedstock.
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/80beats/2010/02/01/will-genetically-modified-eucalyptus-trees-transform-southern-forests/
- Eucalyptus are internationally known for their devastating impacts–from invasiveness to wildfires to their ability to worsen droughts. Massive wildfires in Australia earlier this year were fueled by eucalyptus, which contains a highly volatile oil. Additionally, eucalyptus grandis, one of the species in the GE eucalyptus hybrid, is also a known host to Cryptococcus gattii, a fungus that can cause fatal fungal meningitis in people and animals that inhale its spores.
4. Extrinsic Concern
- ArborGen would likely revolutionize the timber industry and the Southern landscape by becoming the first company to roll out bioengineered trees on a massive scale.By adopting eucalyptus as a tree stock, the United States would simply be catching up with countries like Brazil, which has leveraged vast tree plantations in recent decades to pivot from a net wood importer to an exporter.
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