Washington

American farmers may have jumped at the chance to use genetically modified crops, but foresters are set to take a more cautious approach.

That is the main message of a report on genetically engineered trees just published by the Washington-based Pew Initiative on Food and Biotechnology.

Forest biotechnology has the potential to create pest-resistant trees, to design trees for more easily processed wood products, and possibly to restore endangered species.

But environmental, regulatory and societal issues, which have been problematic for agriculture, could spell more trouble for forestry, says the report, which was written on the basis of a conference run by the Pew Initiative in December. Because trees can spread their pollen over long distances, and plantations are often close to natural forests, gene flow into wild populations would be inevitable, the report says.

The meeting was co-sponsored by the Society of American Foresters (SAF) and the Ecological Society of America, and sought to bring ecologists and foresters together to identify key issues in the debate. Such issues include risk assessment, public participation in decision-making, and possible changes to regulatory oversight of forest biotechnology.

“You just can't afford to make an investment in forestry that's too risky, because it takes so long for the trees to grow,” says Terry Clark, science manager with SAF.

But Toby Bradshaw, a forestry expert at the University of Washington in Seattle, says that transgenics will be important in forest research even if it is not used in commercial forestry.

The Pew Initiative hopes to take recommendations for improving US policies and programmes related to forest biotechnology to Congress by this autumn.