Re: Ecology: Gene tweaking for conservation

Using GM to address issues of ‘conservation’ is one of the
most contradictory ideas I have heard in a long time. If we look at the reasons that we are
currently genetically engineering crops and animals we find that we are simply
trying to adapt organisms to the problems that we, as humans, have been
creating. Many of these problems have
arisen directly as a result of the loss of natural biodiversity. For instance, as we have pushed our
agriculture in the direction of monocropping, natural habitat and natural
predators have been displaced giving rise to the use of pesticides (and now
Bt-modified crops that produce their own pesticides). As pioneer species try to reclaim the land
that we have been clearing, we have declared these pioneer species to be
‘weeds’ and manufacture herbicides to kill them (and now genetically engineer
‘RoundUp-Ready’ crops to withstand ever-larger doses of these herbicides). As dietary choices have been displaced by a limited
handful of crops, nutrition has become compromised, leading to nutritional
deficiencies and the push for the genetic engineering of grain crops (such as
Golden Rice) to contain nutrients such as Vitamin A (only one of many nutrients
that have become compromised). If humanity
is truly concerned about ‘conservation’ we should recognize the fact that our
agricultural systems need to move in the direction of integrated, diverse,
perennial, and seasonal systems of production which work in harmony with the
other elements of nature (including animals, insects, plants, microorganisms,
etc). We don’t need to change the
genetics of any of these incredible natural resources, we simply need to
appreciate their inherent value and learn how to fully integrate them into
resilient, functional, and abundant systems of design.