The “Growing Threat” tour made a stop in Corvallis, Oregon. Here is Mark Des Merets from Northwest Resistance Against Genetic Engineering (NWRAGE) speaking about Oregon State University:
“Hey I’m Mark Des Merets with Northwest Resistance Against Genetic Engineering (NWRAGE). I’m at the OSU (Oregon State University) campus here and I’m also on this roadshow called ‘The Growing Threat.’ We are traveling up the west coast talking about genetically engineered trees. The reason we’re at this campus is because Steve Strauss’ laboratory is engineering poplar. Genetically engineered trees are unsustainable, unwanted, unnecessary, and inherently unsafe. They will devastate native forests in the Pacific Northwest if they get planted and other areas of the world as well. It is a solution in search of a problem.”
Oregon State University currently has 24 acres approved of genetically engineered poplarsranging from traits of herbicide tolerance, insect resistance, altered fertility and many more. They also have permits to genetically engineer apple for sterility on 1 acre of land, modified flowering of Sweetgum on 2 acres of land See links to permits here. These are secretly located open air field trials where the long-term impacts have not been studied and it is completely unknown to the public whether there already has been ecosystem and human impact in the years of testing which has already occurred. Please see Anne Petermann’s submission to the Global Forest Coalition paper in 2008 or the Center for Food Safety’s report on GE Trees to delve deeper into the concerns of the release of GE Trees.
