Original: english, spanish and french

HAMBURG UNIVERSITY, INSTITUTE FOR FOREST GENETICS AND FOREST TREE BREEDING

[01 September 2006]

[SUBMISSION: ENGLISH]

Question 1. Does your country have any plantations, either commercial or experimental, of genetically modified trees?
If yes then give details, e.g. over X number of trials have been safely conducted with no negative effects and no harm to the environment. Trials were approved by and overseen by local regulatory authority. Comments on the rigor of the regulatory process would be useful here. Other comments.
Yes. Germany has performed three field trials with GM trees between 1996 and 2004. Currently, however, no GM tree field trial is ongoing in Germany. The reasons for this are manifold but I try to summarize few of them:

• 
  The risk that the field trial will be destroyed by activist groups is very high. The problem here is a high level of misinformation
  
• 
  The location of the field trial is public accessible via internet
  
• 
  In response to unfounded negative effects speculated by activist groups local grower/producer certification schemes have adopted policies that discourage new technologies including biotechnology
  
• 
  Establishing a field trial with GM trees is difficult in Germany because of the high level of regulations
  
• 
  Finally, in Germany the current law regulating the gene technique is very strict regarding liability issues
  

If yes, please answer all remaining questions. [As this question is structured it would imply that a no answer also means that none of the remaining questions are to be answered. However, this should not preclude additional notes or comments on the remaining questions where there are relevant issues to be addressed.]
Question 2. Has your country developed any platform/discussion forum/national committee etc. dealing with genetically modified trees?
[Note that the question does not relate to regulations – see question 3 for that.]
Yes. In Germany there have been multiple public discussion fora dealing with genetically modified trees. For instance, the BFH has informed the local public (Hamburg, Grosshansdorf) in uncounted meetings about benefits and risks of transgenic trees. Also, a high number of information leaflets describing the potential negative or positive impacts of GM trees were produced and distributed.
A web-based information center informs about all past and ongoing projects on transgenic trees including field trials (http://www.biosicherheit.de/de/gehoelze/). This page is also available in English. A discussion forum has been initiated where questions from the public are answered by experts working in the field (http://www.biosicherheit.de/de/forum/). Also a number of national and international meetings were held, and books published treating the topics of benefits and risks of transgenic trees on a scientific basis. In addition there have been several international discussion forums that have been open to the public, for example – FAO: Electronic forum on biotechnology – Forestry Sector, (http://www.fao.org/Biotech/Conf2.htm)
3. Does your country have any guidelines or regulations for minimizing the impacts of genetically modified trees for scientific and/or commercial purposes?
At my knowledge the answer is no. In case such guideline would exist this doesn’t make any sense. Guidelines would be necessary in case that impacts are only negative but this has not been shown so far. In opposite, impacts of GM trees could also be positive and, thus, any guideline to minimize a positive impact would be nonsense.
A high number of field trials have been performed to screen for positive and negative impacts of released GM trees. A key conclusion of these field trials is that no observations of negative impacts have been made so far. Also no harm of the biodiversity or the environment could be observed demonstrating that trials of GM trees are not difficult to perform safely.
Environmental impacts of genetically modified trees

(Example: effects on native ecosystems, use of herbicide)
In Germany there have been a high number of scientific projects dealing with environmental impacts of GM trees. In particular targeted and non-targeted effects of GM trees have been investigated. So far, no indications of a negative effect have been found.
Cultural impacts of genetically modified trees

(Example: positive or negative impacts on indigenous and local communities and their traditional knowledge)

I don’t see any cultural impact for German communities because the German consumer is habituated to a high number of exotic food (e.g. import of vegetables, fruits etc. from all over the world) and consumer goods (furniture’s, electronic goods and so on). It has to be avoided that ideological issues dominate the discussion of this topic.

Socio-economic impacts of genetically modified trees

(Example: positive or negative effects on quantity, quality and economic value of forest production; positive or negative impacts on livelihoods of communities)
Medicine biotech has provided many significant socio-economic benefits on communities even these were not seen when discussing the risks versus benefits of this techniques in the past. Nowadays, nobody doubts about the benefits. The same I expect for GM trees when these trees are commercially planted in plantations one day and benefits are seen e.g. in respect to protection of native forests, increase of renewable resources or positive effects on climate.

INSTITUTE FOR FOREST BIOTECHNOLOGY

[24 August 2006]

[SUBMISSION: ENGLISH]