Goodbye American Forrests!

The Eucalyptus Tree.

It is commonly found in such places as Brazil and Australia, the Eucalyptus Tree is known for being highly flammable, having an insatiable thirst for groundwater and destroying all surrounding plant life due to it's invasiveness.

In Brazil, eucalyptus plantations are known as 'green deserts' because they do not allow anything else to live. Massive wildfires in Australia earlier this year were fueled by eucalyptus trees, traveling faster than 60 miles per hour, killing hundreds of people. Additionally, Eucalyptus contains a fungus that went inhaled, causes fatal meningitis in people and animals.

(Cryptococcus Gattii)

Meet International Paper. This corporation owns a genetic research facility called ArborGen.

ArborGen recently took Eucalyptus trees from Brazil, genetically altered it in a New Zealand laboratory to create Eucalyptus trees that produce higher levels of cellulose. The more cellulose a Eucalyptus tree has, the more Ethanol can be rendered, and International Paper makes more money.

And now International Paper wants to plant their Frankentrees in The United States.  More specifically, Texas, Louisiana, Alabama, Georgia, Florida, South Carolina and Mississippi.

The problem is that the American ecosystem has never been exposed to Eucalyptus trees, and given that these trees will be allowed to flower and produce seeds, the american ecosystem is being threatened with extinction by this aggressive plant. 

The U.S. Department of Agriculture, who rubber stamped the proposal in May, 2009, opening America's doors to 260,000 Eucalyptus trees has no idea what hell they've unleashed on the American ecosystem.

For more information, please visit www.nogetrees.org