This is from the Global Justice Ecology Project:

STOP GENETICALLY ENGINEERED TREES

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

The development and consequences of genetically engineered trees are moving faster than anticipated. If you're opposed to the use of genetically engineered tress, I urge you to please sign our petition to the United Nations.


DISTURBING NEWS:

* CHINA--Two years ago, China's State Forestry Administration approved genetically modified (GM) poplar trees for commercial planting. Well over one million insect resistant GM poplars have now been planted in China. (This info was uncovered by Chris Lang and published by the World Rainforest Movement in August, 2004.)

* MILAN, ITALY--With pressure from the U.S., the U.N.sponsored Ninth Conference of the Parties held in Milan, Italy last December (2003), agreed to allow the use of genetically engineered trees in plantations developed for carbon sequestration as part of the Clean Development Mechanisms of the Kyoto Protocol, despite the fact that the U.S. has rejected the Protocol. This agreement, reached over the objections of the European Union, opens the door for World Bank funding for development of genetically engineered trees in carbon offset plantations in the Global South through the Bank's Prototype Carbon Fund.

HILO, HAWAII -- Independent laboratory testing results released earlier this month (September, 2004) reveal widespread contamination from the world's first commercially planted genetically engineered tree, the papaya, on Oahu, the Big Island, and Kauai. Contamination was also found in the stock of non-genetically engineered seeds being sold commercially by the University of Hawaii.

SOME OF WHAT GLOBAL JUSTICE ECOLOGY PROJECT DOING TO STOP FRANKEN-TREES:

* Global Justice Ecology Project is working nationally and internationally to stop the commercial development of gentetically engineered trees. In early October (2004) GJEP Co-director, Anne Petermann, will be in Durban, South Africa for important meetings on carbon trading and timber plantation carbon sinks. Some of the groups involved in these meetings are The Corner House (UK), World Rainforest Movement (Uraguay), Carbon Trade Watch Transnational Institute (Netherlands), CDM Watch (Australia), Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation (Sweden), Indigenous Environmental Network (Americas), Sinks Watch (UK), Timberwatch Coalition (South Africa) and more. To read more on these meetings go to our October Events website.

* On Earth Day last April (2004) at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., Dennis Brutus, a South African activist, Ricardo Navarro from El Salvador, Chair of Friends of the Earth International) and Anne Petermann from GJEP demanded that the United Nations and World Bank stop any plans for forestry plantations developed to offset carbon emissions from the Industrial North.

* In May, 2004, GJEP's Anne Petermann went to Geneva, Switzerland with organizations including The Union of Ecoforestry (Finland), Friends of the Earth International and World Rainforest Movement (Uruguay), to pressure the United Nations to oppose the use of genetically engineered trees in carbon offset forestry plantations developed under the Kyoto Protocol, and to ban their commercial development. On 11 May petitions signed by renowned scientists such as Dr. David Suzuki, more than 160 organizations including The Sierra Club, and Friends of the Earth International as well as over 1,500 individuals were presented to the U.N. in Geneva backing these demands.

* It's still not too late to sign the petition to the U.N.
as we will be presenting more to the U.N. Tenth Conference of the Parties to be held in Buenos Aires, Argentina in December (2004).

* Additionally, Global Justice Ecology Project is one of the founders of the Stop GE Trees Campaign The Campaign includes GJEP, the Sierra Club, Rainforest Action Network, Dogwood Alliance, Polaris Institute, WildLaw, Institute for Social Ecology Biotechnology Project, ForestEthics, Klamath-Siskiyou Wildlands Center, Forest Stewards Guild and Northwest Resistance Against Genetic Engineering. Anne Petermann is Chair of the Steering Committee.

To help and get involved in the national and international campaigns against ge trees, please contact Global Justice Ecology Project . Click here to become a member of Global Justice Ecology Project and support our work to stop ge trees.

More info on ge trees from GJEP