A new organizing initiative called “GE Trees Fall” launched with a four day GE trees action training camp [1] outside of Asheville North Carolina, over September 24th to the 27th. Following the camp, activists converged on the world headquarters of ArborGen in Ridgeville, SC on Monday September 28th, resulting in two arrests.
Ruddy Turnstone, GJEP’s GE Trees Campaigner and I were arrested during the protest, which demanded ArborGen tear down their wall of secrecy surrounding their GE tree research and development, and pointed out that resistance to GE trees is growing, with more than a quarter of a million people signing on to letters and petitions rejecting GE trees, and protests against GE trees on six continents in 2015 alone. [2]
These sign ons and protests mark a rapidly growing concern about the dangers of GE trees and the threats they pose to the environment and to people’s health. ArborGen is developing genetically engineered loblolly pine trees with no federal oversight, no public input, no independent risk assessments and no method for the public to receive information.
The four-day action camp was held in the US Southeast because the region is considered ground zero for GE trees in the US, due to ArborGen’s GE loblolly pines. In January of 2015 it was revealed that the USDA had made the unprecedented decision to give GE tree company ArborGen the green light to pursue commercial development of genetically engineered loblolly pine trees with no government oversight, no environmental or social risk assessments and no ability for the public to give input or obtain information–including neighboring landowners.