Scientists have applied to plant a group of genetically modified (GM) trees
on land owned by the Forestry Commission, it has been confirmed.
A group of researchers from the University of Southampton want to establish
a settlement of GM poplar trees to carry out research into biofuels.

A spokesman for the Forestry Commission said: "I'm aware that researchers
from the University of Southampton have applied to plant some GM poplar on
our land. We're still considering their request but haven't given a
definitive answer."

The plantation would be the first attempt to cultivate GM trees in the UK
since 1999, when activists destroyed 115 plants in Berkshire.

Scientists from the University of Southampton said the time had now come to
try and "move the debate forward" on GM trees. Their project involves
poplars that have been genetically altered to reduce the amount of lignin, a
constituent of wood. The team believe this will make it easier for the trees
to be used to produce ethanol, a so called "biofuel" which can be used to
replace petrol in cars, as well as pulp for paper.

Supporters of GM trees say the technology can also be used to help protect
Britain?s forests from disease and improve the quality of the country's
timber produce.
Professor Gail Taylor, who is leading the new project, said: "We're in a
black hole at the moment, as far as research goes. But it is hard to imagine
a world in the future where these technologies are not deployed more widely.

"We need to get the evidence to see if these things can be deployed on a
wide scale.

"The extreme environmentalists are preventing us from collecting the
evidence. We have to go public and try to move the public debate forward. We
know what the consequences will be but we need that debate."

But campaigners warned that allowing the move to go ahead would be "an
unknown and worrying risk" for Britain's eco systems.

Clare Oxborrow, a GM campaigner for Friends of the Earth said: "Our concerns
with GM trees are even more serious than crops because trees are very long
lived. They are inherently geared up for spreading seeds and pollen because
of they way the reproduce. There's a huge potential for cross pollination.
It could have a really negative impact and cause widespread ecological
damage."

She added that biofuels: "distract from the real solutions that we all know
we have. Our concern is that biofuels will distract people away from other
solutions."

Peter Riley, of anti GM campaign group GM Freeze said the Government needed
to "think very carefully" before allowing the bid to go ahead.

"It's the long term environmental implications that we should be worried
about," he said. "It's difficult to predict what the long term consequences
would be. In the forests you have a vast number of species and a diverse
ecosystem. The trees last for a long time, if something goes wrong, the
consequences are quite long term and significant."

Trees are expected to become a major source of biofuel and the Southampton
team believe the GM modified ones will have an ethanol yield 40 per cent
greater than "normal" poplars.

They are carrying out the research with academics from France and Belgium
and are seeking locations in Britain and Belgium. They have submitted an
application with the Forestry Commission to use one of the UK sites run by
its research agency, Forest Research. If it is approved, the location will
be made public.

The Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs will also have to
approve the scheme, but scientists have been encouraged by recent comments
by Joan Ruddock, the Environment Minister, in which she appears to endorse
new GM trees trials, provided they comply with strict guidelines. Earlier
this year, the Minister attended a meeting in Germany to discuss the issue
with politicians from around the world.

The meeting outlined the circumstances in which trials could go ahead. Until
the end of trials in the 1990s, British scientists were in the vanguard of
research into GM trees and were the first to grow elm that could resist
Dutch elm disease. Researchers at the University of Abertay in Dundee found
that anti-fungal genes transferred into the elm genome were able give the
trees the capacity to fight off the killer fungus.

Scientists believe other tree diseases, such as chestnut blight and sudden
oak death, which is affecting a growing number of oak and beech trees in the
UK, could also be tackled by genetic modification. Trees have also been
genetically altered to grow more quickly, be more tolerant of weedkillers
and resistant to pests. Professor Claire Halpin, from the University of
Dundee, worked on the field trials of poplars destroyed by saboteurs in
1999.

She said: "The real tragedy of the attacks on the field trials were that
they actually prevented us accumulating the knowledge of just how useful
they could be. I can't see any justification for interfering with field
trials.

"The whole area has had such a bad press that it would be a real bonus to
find an example where they could show a conservation benefit ? to make
people stop and think again that it could be beneficial, rather than the
entrenched positions ? almost knee-jerk responses that some of the
conservation groups have come out with.

"In other parts of the world, people really are pursuing it much more
actively than we are at the moment. If these trees do offer benefits we will
be left behind."

Although research in the UK stopped at the end of the 1990s, other countries
have invested heavily in the technology and experts fear a lack of new
research could leave the British forestry industry struggling to compete
with foreign competition.

Jane Karthaus, from the UK's Confederation of Forest Industries, said: "We
are always open-minded and if there were a potentially significant (GM)
breakthrough which, for example, would allow a reduction in pesticide use,
or would tackle a challenge thrown up by climate change, such as, from new
pests and diseases then we would consider it within the context of
sustainable forest management with partners in the environmental sector and
in government."

There have been five field trials of GM trees in Britain. Three were
completed normally: two trials of eucalyptus conducted by Shell in Kent, one
in 1993 and one in 1995, and a trial of paradise apple carried out by the
University of Derby in 1995. But two trials of poplars by the biotechnology
company Astra Zeneca, at Jealott's Hill, Bracknell, Berkshire, one due to be
completed by 2002 and the other by 2004, were destroyed by eco-activists in
1999.

www.checkbiotech.org