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Summerville, SC- The genetically engineered tree (GE tree) company ArborGen, a joint project of timber corporations International Paper (NYSE: IP), MeadWestvaco (NYSE: MWV) and Rubicon (NZSE: RBC.NZ), decided suddenly yesterday to change its plans and not sell shares in ArborGen publicly on the NASDAQ exchange.

On July 1, 2010, three member organizations of the STOP GE Trees Campaign (Global Justice Ecology Project, Dogwood Alliance and Sierra Club) teamed up with attorneys at the Center for Biological Diversity and the Center for Food Safety to sue the US Department of Agriculture over their approval of a series of field trials involving more than a quarter of a million GE cold tolerant eucalyptus trees because the Environmental Assessment the USDA used to approve the field trials was inadequate.   The lawsuit demands that the USDA prepare a full Environmental Impact Statement regarding the field trials because of their potential impacts on forests, ground water, wildlife and endangered or threatened species.

The groups that filed the suit charge that GE trees carry serious social and ecological risks; and that these risks were either downplayed or outright ignored in the USDA’s Environmental Assessment.

“This lawsuit against the USDA over their approval of GE eucalyptus trees is just one of a series of lawsuits that has been filed against the USDA by the Center for Food Safety, the Sierra Club and others,” stated Dr. Neil Carman, a plant scientist with the Sierra Club.     “The USDA’s Environmental Assessments on GMO plants are shams.   Their science is completely flawed. Litigation has revealed this time and time again in court.   I think ArborGen has good right to worry that they will never get commercial approval for their GE trees, based on the legal precedents so far,” he added.