EDITORIAL: Lend an ear to positive uses of GM

16th January 2008

LOUIS PIERARD THE protesters who hacked down genetically modified pine trees in a test block near Rotorua at the weekend have been condemned by anti-GM groups. And so they should be.

The trees, which were genetically altered to grow faster, produce better wood and for their resistance to diseases and pests, were attacked after a hole was cut in a perimeter fence.

While condemnation might be expected for an act of vandalism, particularly one that jeopardises an experiment that could prove economically essential for New Zealand, the wreckers have been censured only because they could have spread contaminated material and ``harmed New Zealand's green image'.

There is a pragmatic view in the opposition to genetic modification. It is that the global perception of it being a risky business is so strong that it is an advantage for New Zealand to capitalise on it - much as we do with the growing and export of organic produce.

However, weighed against that are the enormous economic benefits GM production could provide. Our pine forests have become a major export and to produce better wood, faster is a necessary ambition.

An apocalyptic vision sustains many who oppose GM. They see nothing good coming from it.

Without risk, nothing is achieved. It doesn't seem to matter that many in the legion that opposes scientific inquiry for its uncertainties owe their very existence to the fact that such risks have been taken. Also paradoxically, many who invoke scientific authority in their arguments (as in the climate change debate) are the last to concede that science is capable of providing the answers.

Tinkering with nature has become a moral issue. Yet such adjustments began millennia ago with the most rudimentary animal husbandry. Altering plants (of which GM is an extension) has allowed the world to feed itself. New Zealand's valuable radiata forests are the result of highly efficient, selective breeding.

Defending GM in an article in The Guardian, science writer Matt Ridley referred to the essentially European argument that the world now produced enough food without it. It achieved that, he says, by rapidly adopting fertiliser, pesticides and high-yielding varieties. ``This `Green Revolution' depended on genetically new varieties created by artificial mutation using nuclear radiation and chemical mutagens.'

Thanks to science and technology the possibilities of modern life seem limitless. We live longer than our forebears. We are healthier, safer, wealthier, more mobile and endlessly entertained.

Yet despite all that, we are preoccupied with the negative and immersed in gloom. Where there should be optimism, the miserable denial of the potential of science is as unconquerable as superstition.

So deeply do fear and scepticism run that reasoned advocacy of GM may have little effect. But it deserves a hearing, nevertheless - and there should be no place for the wreckers and their spades.