[FLPERMACULTURE] Fwd: New biofuel crops could become invasive

[Joseph Wetmore]

<http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/05/21/MN9G10PV9G.DTL&hw=biofuel&sn=001&sc=1000>


New biofuel crops could become invasive

Botanists fear plants will rapidly spread outside
their plantations and
 
cost millions to control, eradicate

Elisabeth Rosenthal, New York Times

Wednesday, May 21, 2008


(05-21) 04:00 PDT Rome - --

In the past year, as the diversion of food crops like
corn and palm to 
make biofuels has helped to drive up food prices,
investors and 
politicians have begun promoting newer, so-called
second-generation 
biofuels as the next wave of green energy. These, made
from non-food 
crops like reeds and wild grasses, would offer fuel
without the risk of
 
taking food off the table, they said.

But now, biologists and botanists are warning that
they, too, may bring
 
serious unintended consequences. Most of these newer
crops are what scientists label invasive species -
weeds - that have an extraordinarily high potential to
escape biofuel plantations, overrun adjacent farms and
natural land, and create economic and ecological havoc
in the process, they say.

At a U.N. meeting in Bonn, Germany on Tuesday,
scientists from the Global Invasive Species Program,
the Nature Conservancy and the International Union for
Conservation of Nature, as well as other
 groups, presented a paper with a warning about
invasive species.

"Some of the most commonly recommended species for
biofuels production are also major invasive alien
species," the paper says, adding that these crops
should be studied more thoroughly before being
cultivated in new areas.

Controlling the spread of such plants could prove
difficult, the experts said, producing "greater
financial losses than gains."

The International Union for Conservation of Nature
encapsulated the message like this: "Don't let
invasive biofuel crops attack your country."

To reach their conclusions, the scientists compared
the list of the most popular second-generation
biofuels with the list of invasive species and found
an alarming degree of overlap. They said little risk
evaluation 
had occurred before planting.

"With biofuels, there's always a hurry," said Geoffrey
Howard, an invasive species expert with International
Union for Conservation of Nature. "Plantations are
started by investors, often from the U.S. or Europe,
so they are eager to generate biofuels within a couple
of years and also, as you might guess, they don't want
a negative assessment."

The biofuels industry said the risk of biofuel crops
morphing into weed problems is overstated, noting that
proposed biofuel crops, while they have some weedy
potential, are not plants that inevitably turn
 invasive.

"There are very few plants that are weeds, full stop,"
said Willy De Greef, incoming secretary general of
EuropaBio, an industry group. "You have to look at the
biology of the plant and the environment where you're
introducing it and ask, 'Are there worry points here?'
"

He said biofuel farmers would inevitably introduce new
crops carefully because they would not want growth
they could not control.

The European Union and the United States have both
instituted biofuel targets as a method to reduce
carbon emissions. The European Union's target of 10
percent biofuel use in transportation by 2020 is
binding. 
As such, politicians are anxiously awaiting the
commercial perfection of second-generation biofuels.

The European Union is funding a project to introduce
the "giant reed, a high yielding, non-food plant into
Europe Union agriculture," according to its proposal.
The reed is environmentally friendly and a 
cost-effective crop, poised to become the "champion of
biomass crops," the proposal says.

A proposed Florida biofuel plantation and plant, also
using giant reed, has been greeted with enthusiasm by
investors, its energy sold even before it is built.

But the project has been opposed by the Florida Native
Plant Society  and  a number of scientists because of
its proximity to the Everglades, where giant reed
overgrowth could be dangerous, they said. 

The giant reed, previously used mostly in decorations
and in making musical instruments - is a fast-growing,
thirsty species that has drained wetlands and clogged
drainage systems in other places where it has been
planted. It also is highly flammable and increases the
risk of fires.

 From a business perspective, the good thing about
second-generation biofuel crops is that they are easy
to grow and need little attention. But that is also
what creates their invasive potential.

"These are tough survivors, which means they're good
producers for biofuel because they grow well on
marginal land that you wouldn't use for food," Howard
said. "But we've had 100 years of experience with 
introductions of these crops that turned out to be
disastrous for environment, people, health."

Stas Burgiel, a scientist at the Nature Conservancy,
said the cost of controlling invasive species is
immense and generally not paid by those who created
the problem.

But he and other experts emphasized that some of the
second-generation biofuel crops could still be safe if
introduced into the right places and under the right
conditions

"With biofuels we need to do proper assessments and
take appropriate measures so they don't get out of the
gate, so to speak," he said.