Biotechnology in the forestry sector

Biotechnology provides important tools for the sustainable development of agriculture, fisheries and forestry and can be of significant help in meeting the food needs of a growing and increasingly urbanized population,” reads an FAO press release dated 15 March 2000. The field of modern biotechnology is indeed often considered as one of the fields of scientific research in which the most rapid advances have been made in recent years.
Several elements can explain the growing interest of forest scientists, conservationists and tree growers in modern biotechnologies. They include the unique roles and functions that trees, major structural constituents of forest ecosystems have, their special biological characteristics, and their importance in the provision of environmental, social and economic goods and services. Special features of interest to scientists and geneticists include the low level of domestication of forest trees and their rich genetic diversity; their long life cycles, long generation times and late sexual maturity; their spatial requirements; the multiplicity of species and the low degree of heritability of traits of interest, linked to weak juvenile–adult correlations and the importance of genotype–environment interactions. Application of biotechnologies in forests has been seen as a unique opportunity for obtaining new information on the extent, patterns and functioning of tree genetic diversity; and for providing new tree varieties and reproductive materials adapted to changing environmental, social and economic environments (Fenning and Gershenzon 2002).

2.1.1.1 Background and methodology

Specific developments in biotechnology in the forestry sector have been addressed in a large number of conferences, meetings, publications, electronic fora and Internet web pages¹³. Owing to this abundant literature, this report, commissioned from CIRAD-Forêt by FAO in December 2003, will not describe the types and classifications of forest biotechnology in detail. It aims instead to fill a gap in global data and statistics on research in and applications of biotechnology for forest trees. Given the scientific and technical potential created by an increasingly accurate knowledge of forest tree species genomic structure, it is important to have an overall picture of the current status of forest biotechnology developments, together with trends and future prospects. The objective of this document is thus to review and summarize research, and the suitability and practical use of biotechnology in the forestry sector, and to provide tentative global analyses.
For the purpose of the study, a simple data set has been developed. The data set gathers major biotechnology activity (i.e. a given technology developed or used in a given country, on a given tree species or variety, by a given laboratory team, for a given purpose [Appendix 2.7.1]).
Data originated from (i) systematic searches in CAB Abstracts and associated global scientific databases, (ii) searches on the Internet (including sites of private companies, governmental and non-governmental institutions and linked references, and (iii) personal enquiries, observations and communications. Most significant publications, including those produced by major laboratories and teams, have been included in the data set. The study was mainly conducted between February and September 2004.
The data set included basic fields such as country, type of biotechnology, information source, reference or Internet site, stage of development, species or genera involved and, whenever available, year when the activity was conducted. These fields were considered to be a minimum set of requirements for entering a biotechnology activity in the database. The reference period covers approximately the last 10 years, although more than 75 percent of the data were from between 2000 and 2004. Internet references, however, could not always be dated.
The data set is in no way comprehensive, and some of its limitations reflect the difficulties of such information gathering. The study revealed language limitations (international databases cover only a fraction of the literature in Chinese and Russian, for example). International databases also tend to reflect past research activities, and only a small share of on-going research work. An additional flaw of the data set is related to private (corporate) research and commercial applications, for which public-domain information is generally scarce. Despite its drawbacks, the data set provides a sample (of unknown global representativeness) of materials available in the public domain. No attempt has been made to gather classified information. In total, data on 2 716 activities were collected, and their analysis supports the present report. Data, statistics and conclusions presented in this report should therefore be considered with caution and as general indicators.