Other Issues

Launch of City Council Environment Awards

Cambridge City Council launched the fourth year of it’s Environment Awards on the 15th December at The Castle Project, Gwydir Street, which won an award last year for the transformation of its garden.

The Awards aim to increase the effectiveness of environmental activity among community based groups and encourage practical projects and ideas to improve the environment.

This year the Environment Award has an increased pot of £5000 to disperse to local groups, thanks to corporate sponsorship.

The awards will be judged in March and if you know of a group that could benefit from some extra cash to carry out a practical project which would improve Cambridge’s environment contact Sue Woodsford on 01223-457046 for more details and an application form.

Application forms and further details are also available from the Guildhall, other council departments, community centres and libraries.

Ian Ralls

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GM trees - sterile forests

In a report published recently by the World Wide Fund (WWF) for Nature, it was revealed that since 1988 116 trials of GM trees have taken place without proper controls for research on effects on the environment. Seventy trial are being carried out in the USA and five in Britain.

Some of these trials involve growing fast growing trees which are resistant to attack from insects and agents which cause wood decay, mostly fungi. The trees are also sprayed by planes to kill off other pests. However, forests are extremely complex and species-rich habitats, as they provide such a wide variety of niches for various organisms, from the highest branches to the leaf litter of the forest floor and the root systems underground. Inhabitants of forest ecosystems range from mammals and birds to insects, and soil organisms such as worms, fungi and bacteria. Creating forests in which "pests" are brought under rigorous control could, via effects exerted through the food chain, seriously undermine the whole forest ecosystem.

Francis Sullivan, director of programmes for WWF-UK, said there was the prospect of large blocks of land in Britain and North America being given over to one species of super-tree, creating sterile environments.

Impossible to monitor effects

The report, written by Rachel Owusu says commercial planting of GM trees is likely to happen soon in Chile, China and Indonesia. The report also states that pine pollen, for example, can pollinate other pine trees over a distance of 400 miles. To get an idea of what this really means, in a small country like Ireland for example, one pine tree, no matter where it was located, could theoretically pollinate every other tree in the country. This means that, in the case of pine, it would be impossible to monitor the effects of a GM trial on native trees. WWF is calling for female only trees to be planted to avoid this risk. Another problem posed by trees in particular is that they live for so long and are known to change to adapt to changing circumstances. For example, poplar trees bred in Germany to delay flowering, to avoid cross-contamination, did so years earlier than they were expected to do so.

GM trees that do cross-fertilise each other, or native species, could create fast growing hybrid tree species which could displace slower-growing native trees and at the same time destroy the natural forest habitat.

We want more research done

Mr. Sullivan said, "We are not against genetically modified trees in principal, but we want more research done, and above all, openness about what is being planted. We need to know the pros and cons, about the dangers of cross-fertilisation of native species, and of sterilising large areas of the landscape".

WWF is contacting its network of 100 companies which are already committed to using timber from sustainable sources, to urge them to ban GM wood products. Sainsbury’s, among other companies, have already pledged a ban.

The thirty tree species which have been modified already include apple, banana, birch, chestnut, elm, peach, pear, pine, plum, eucalyptus and walnut. The traits under study include growth rates, herbicide tolerance, salt tolerance, insect, rot, drought and frost resistance, and reduction of the amount of lignin in trees, which would make the wood easier to pulp, useful in paper manufacture, for example.

James Murray

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