The GLP aggregated and excerpted this blog/article to reflect the diversity of news, opinion and analysis.ย
To some, GMOs are the antithesis of green. Greenpeace calls them โgenetic pollution,โ warning on its website that โGMOs should not be released into the environment since there is not an adequate scientific understanding of their impact on the environment and human health.โ
But scientists โ still a minority โ are beginning to wonder if genetic engineering can be used to help organisms adapt to change and actuallyย increaseย the biodiversity of the planet.
โI think it really isnโt on the radar screen of the conservation community at all,โ says Kent Redford, former lead scientist at the Wildlife Conservation Society and now head of Archipelago Consulting. Redford organized one of the first conferences, in Cambridge, England, in 2013, to consider the gnarly intersection of genetic engineering, nature and conservation.
Share this article
In the scientific journalย Nature, a half dozen scientists from several universities suggested that โfacilitated adaptationโ might be used in โrescuing a target population or species by endowing itย with adaptive alleles, or gene variants, using genetic engineering.โ
Think about it: Producing a white pine immune to blister rust or North American ash trees impervious to emerald ash borer. Engineering corals to thrive in more acidic waters. Inoculating frogs with a gene to protect against chytrid fungus. Creating a genetic based pesticide that kills only a single invasive species.
Read full, original post:ย In the race to save species, GMOs are coming to nature
