Breaking Green

The American Chestnut, an Environmental History and Cautionary Tale with Author Dr. Donald Davis

• Global Justice Ecology Project / Host Steve Taylor • Season 2 • Episode 4

Share episode

In 1904, at the Bronx Zoological Park, chestnut trees were dying from a spore borne blight brought to the United States by Japanese chestnut trees that were imported by commercial nurseries.

The American chestnut is now referred to as functionally extinct and forests where they were once the dominant species have long since transitioned from Oak chestnut to Oak hickory forests.

In this episode of Breaking green, we will talk with Dr. Donald Davis, author of the American Chestnut: an environmental history. His exhaustive book explores how the American Chestnut Tree has shaped history as well as the cultural and environmental significance of the once ubiquitous tree.

He also calls the story of the American Chestnut, a cautionary tale of unintended consequences, and criticizes plans to conduct a massive and irreversible experiment by releasing genetically engineered American chestnuts into the wild.

Davis is an independent scholar, author and former Fulbright fellow. He has authored or edited seven books. His book, Where There are Mountains: an environmental history of the southern Appalachians, won the prestigious Philip D. Reed environmental writing award. Davis was also the founding member of the Georgia Chapter of the American Chestnut Foundation, serving as its president from 2005 to 2006. He is currently employed by the Harvard forest as a research scholar and lives in Washington DC.

You can learn more about GE trees at The Campaign to STOP GE Trees.

You can find The American Chestnut: an environmental history on Amazon.

Breaking Green is produced by Global Justice Ecology Project.

Breaking Green is made possible by donations from people like you. 

Please help us lift up the voices of those working to protect forests, defend human rights and expose false solutions.  Simply click here to send a donation or text GIVE to 1 716 257 4187.

Steve Taylor  
Welcome to breaking green, a podcast by global justice ecology project. On breaking green, we will talk with activists and experts to examine the intertwined issues of social, ecological and economic injustice. We will also explore some of the more outrageous proposals to address climate and environmental crises that are falsely being sold as green. I am your host, Steve Taylor. In 1904, at the Bronx Zoological Park, chestnut trees were dying from a spore borne blight brought to the United States by Japanese chestnut trees that were imported by commercial nurseries. The American chestnut is now referred to as functionally extinct and forest where they were once the dominant species have long since transitioned from Oak chestnut to Oak hickory forests. In this episode of Breaking Green, we will talk with Dr. Donald Davis, author of the American Chestnut an environmental history. In his book, Davis gives an environmental history of the American Chestnut. His exhaustive book explores how the American Chestnut tree has shaped history as well as the cultural and environmental significance of the once ubiquitous tree. He also calls the story of the American Chestnut, a cautionary tale of unintended consequences, and criticizes plans to conduct a massive and irreversible experiment by releasing genetically engineered American chestnuts into the wild. Davis is an independent scholar, author and former Fulbright fellow. He has authored or edited seven books. His book, where there are mountains an environmental history of the southern Appalachians, won the prestigious Philip D. Reed environmental writing award. Davis was also the founding member of the Georgia Chapter of the American Chestnut Foundation, serving as its president from 2005 to 2006. He is currently employed by the Harvard forest as a research scholar and lives in Washington DC. Dr. Davis, welcome to Breaking Green.

Dr. Davis  
Thank you. Great to be here.

Steve Taylor  
Dr. Davis, you have a PhD in environmental sociology. And your recent book is titled The American chestnut an environmental history. Could you tell us what is environmental history? 

Dr. Davis  
Sure. Yes, I received my PhD in sociology from the University of Tennessee and my committee members knew that I was interested in environmental history, particularly southern Appalachian environmental history. So they pretty much just gave me the green light to do an environmental history of the southern Appalachian. So even though I am a sociologist by training, part of what environmental history does is always looks at human nature, culture, nature, culture, human nature, sort of relationships. So, my books have always had a human component. So yes, they're about ecological history, environmental history, but true environmental history never takes the human equation out. In fact, the founders of the discipline says that's what makes environmental history environmental history is that it's always looking at human nature relationships.

Steve Taylor  
Although I was familiar with the basic history of the American Chestnut, while reading your book, I was surprised at the extent to which the American Chestnut touched the lives and histories of so many people over such a long expanse of time. Your book starts with the so called paleo Indians and then the Native Americans of the woodland era. It moves to the colonial era hits upon various US presidents, the author Henry David Thoreau, the railroads, telegraph, Civil War, and even the importance of chestnuts to pass cuisine. It also touches on coffin making furniture making fence and barn making. Am I missing anything?

Dr. Davis  
No, I think Steve, you pretty much. Got it all in there. Yes, this was an incredible tree. It really was prolific throughout the eastern United States. And it had so many uses. In fact, I pretty I think it argued towards the end of the book, that's that's what made the American chestnuts so unique is that it had so many uses for human society, not just for the wood, but for the nuts. And even the wood itself could be used for so many different things. So it really it really was a very unique tree. And it really did give a lot to the humans that you know, live near it, and encountered it over the years.

Steve Taylor  
As a founding member of the Georgia Chapter of the American Chestnut Foundation, it's clear that you have long been interested in the history of the chestnut. But this is a thoroughly researched book. What is your favorite historical factor? With that you ran into while researching?

Dr. Davis  
I think one of the things that really surprised me was how there was a group of entomologist, who basically saw the chestnut blight coming, and they were sort of warning us that something like this could happen. So to give you a little bit of context, back in the 1870s, there was an insect brought in to California from China, and possibly Japan. And this little insect was later named San Jose Scale because it was first sort of identified in San Jose, California. And the little insect is tiny and the females look like little scales, they don't even look like insects. They're just strange looking blobs that attach to fruit trees and fruit. So this tree comes on imported fruit stock from China from Japan. And immediately when it arrives in California, it just spreads like wildfire fire and kills 10s of 1000s of fruit trees. And and starts decimating the fruit crops in California. Folks said, if we don't do something, now, this, this disease is going to spread east. And if it spreads east, we're going to have a disaster on our hands. So you started seeing entomologist and different government regulators trying to warn folks out, you know, back east, about this insect, and no one listened. So by the 1890s, what happens San Jose scale arrives in the Northeast, and when it does, a lot of the government regulators says, you know, you've got to do something about this, you've got to eradicate it, you've got to dispose your all of your trees. You even have to tell the public that you have San Jose scale infections, and no one wanted to admit it. People said, Let us manage this ourselves, we'll burn the trees, we'll cull the trees. But please don't tell the public that we have San Jose scale, people will never buy anything from us. So there was this almost a cover up about San Jose scale. And what just amazed me is that the very nurseries who were selling fruit trees with San Jose scale, were the exact same nurseries who imported the Japanese chestnuts that had the chestnut blight on them. And folks, were saying, Look, if you don't do something better in terms of regulating imported pest, you're gonna have a disaster on your hands. And sure enough, within the next five years, you have the arrival of chestnut blight. You had what what one biologist has called the greatest ecological catastrophe since last ice age. And I guess that was the biggest sort of epiphany for me is that, you know, it's like, people almost saw it coming and did really nothing to sort of prepare themselves for the arrival of chestnut. Why?

Steve Taylor  
Yeah, I, I noticed that in your book. One thing that's interesting to note or that you noted, was that with the San Jose Scale, that that was prior to the passage of the plant importation? Yes, exactly. It seemed like inspectors and regulators were bullied or unduly influenced by individual nurseries and commercial interests.

Dr. Davis  
Exactly. In fact, the the nursery owners were some of the wealthiest individuals in the United States at that time. And they had lots of power, lots of clout, and, as you say, sometimes even bullied the regulators and how they were to, you know, manage their own orchards and nurseries.

Steve Taylor  
In your book, you state that the American Chestnut was a key component of the oak chestnut forest, and that it influenced frontier history in a unique and important way. What did you mean by that?

Dr. Davis  
Well, you have to, you know, put yourself in the United States during the 1700s, late 1600s, early to mid 1700s. And really what's driving the economy then was the fur trade. You literally had entire towns sort of develop because of the furtrade. Furs, were almost like currency and without furs, you couldn't sort of sale and exchange things. And just imagine the the College of William and Mary was basically founded by monies that were received because of the fur trade. Augusta, Georgia came into existence because of the fur trade. So all these deer and different animals that were were a part of the fur trade. They were dependent on the Chilean chestnut Oak Forest for their livelihood. So without the chestnut Oak Forest you're not going Have these large populations of deer. And we're talking millions, I mean, literally millions and millions of deer were exported between 1700 and let's say 1760, when the peak probably was. And you would never have that many deer without the incredible amount of mast that the chestnuts and the Oaks produced. And sure enough when the deer, you know, started being culled out and started becoming scarce closer to the, you know, to the European and then later on American settlements, they had to go deeper and deeper into the backcountry where the chestnut oaks still were in order to find these animals. So, you could argue that, you know, the entire frontier economy was partly dependent upon, you know, these huge vast expanses of Chuck chestnut Oak Forest. And keep in mind when I say chestnut oak, some places you know, might be 30%, chestnut, but 30%, oak or 10%, chestnut or 40%. Oak, so the distribution of oak and chestnut, you know, shifted from locale to locale, but chestnut was always one of the dominant species in that forest.

Steve Taylor  
In the book, you say that, by the 1800s, the American Chestnut had declined. You cite some environmental factors, including a mini ice age. But you also note that there was a tremendous amount of chestnut that was used for rail fencing, telegraph poles, dead men, or what they called sleepers for the railroads. Could you help us understand the scale of logging that that occurred when the chestnut was was used for such purposes?

Dr. Davis  
Right. You probably saw the chestnut scarce scarcity occurring first in the northeast and New England. So there, people started taking out chestnuts for fencing. And as early as the 1600s, chestnut was being used primarily to defense in livestock to keep livestock out of gardens or to fence in entire properties. So you literally were chopping down 1000s of trees in order to encircle your property with chestnut post and fencing. After the railroads come about, then you begin to see chestnut being used for railroad ties, because, as I point out in the book, chestnut is one of the most rot resistant woods there that you have. Therefore, if you want to have anything that comes in contact with water, like railroad ties, telephone poles, telegraph poles, roof shingles, coffins anything like that chestnut is the wood for you, right. So when the when the railroads start taking off in New England, that's, you know, the tree that's cut down to build the railroads. And the row laments that in in Walden, he talks about how the chestnuts are sleeping their final sleep, think I'm paraphrasing, but he's sort of making a pawn on the railroad sleeper, which is the New England vernacular word for a railroad tie as the sleeper. So chestnuts start to decline because of the railroad, of course, in the Southern southern United States is not as popular it is as it is in New England, but even in the southern United States, just not as being cut for for coffins being cut for fencing. And then when the telegraph comes about the telegraph, you know, sort of the internet of the Victorian age, right? Literally 1000s, hundreds of 1000s of messages were sent along these telegraph lines. And the vast majority of telegraph poles were made of chestnut. Why again, because it's a rot resistant wood, and to because when you cut a chestnut the coppice sprout, or the tree that comes that grows from the cut is almost perfectly straight. So if you want a perfectly straight tree, which is great for a telegraph pole, then chestnut again, was your preferred wood. So you literally had millions of telegraph poles made of chestnut between let's say, the 1870s and the turn of the 20th century. And then of course, when the telephone comes along telephone poles which needed to be slightly larger, they also needed to be straight. They too, were made a chestnut. Not all but the majority were of chestnut. So there's just all these uses that just not would, you know required and therefore, it was a tree that was cut a lot.

Steve Taylor  
You had some amazing statistics in the book. This was not just incidental logging. I mean, large portions of entire forests were logged for the railway and the telegraph, and even the fuelling of iron ore production facilities. Hundreds of 1000s of acres of forests were logged for such purposes. The scale was stunning.

Dr. Davis  
Yes. A lot of a lot of acreage. I think I mentioned Connecticut at one point. There was a period in Connecticut were 8% of the entire forest was cut down for the salvage of chestnut. Still, that's 8% percent of the entire surface area of Connecticut was impacted. For the for the salvaging of the chestnut timber.

Steve Taylor  
Well, you said this activity occurred up to the blight. So let's talk about the blight. There had been some diseases before like ink rot. And you had mentioned the San Jose scale. But the blight that we are all familiar with was first found in 1904 at the Bronx, Zoological Park. And by 1906, all the chestnuts or chestnut trees in Brooklyn's Forest Park were dead or dying. What did that look like? What did the early days of the Blight look like?

Dr. Davis  
Well, you know, at the Bronx, Zoological Park, it was, you know, just stunning to the individuals that that work there. Because, you know, there were there were literally hundreds and hundreds of huge large trees there in the park. And it really sort of gave character to that landscape. And within just a couple of years, the leaves on the trees with Drew would disappear. And there would be nothing left, but just sort of a gray skeleton of a tree. So in some places, as far as you could see, you would just see nothing but the sort of dead gray ghosts like skeletons of chestnut trees. And in places where there are lots of trees, this looked almost apocalyptic to individuals. They just couldn't believe that a tree that had been part of their life had been part of their culture that they have, you know, gathered nuts every year. They just were like, shocked. And some of the individuals just well, I think there was one Presbyterian minister who said it was sort of the a sign of the apocalypse. So the blight spreads, basically northward eastward southward from the Bronx. And within just a few years, it's already, you know, well into Connecticut and upstate New York and into New Jersey and Pennsylvania. And there is a little bit of misnomer that it sort of spread gradually, there was some sort of leapfrogging ahead of the blight. So in some places, it was found 100 or even 200 miles away from the closest infection. And I argue in the book is that this because this is because the Japanese chestnut trees which were carrying the blight were being planted all over the eastern United States. And where are you wherever you had an infected Japanese chestnut tree, you got you're going to introduce the cryphonectria parasitica fungus. So this is why there wasn't this sort of gradual slow sort of spread of the blight across the eastern United States. It's a little bit more sporadic.

Steve Taylor  
Interestingly, you note that Thomas Jefferson and other people of his era admitted the superiority of the Italian chestnut and other European varieties when it came to size and commerce. You you quoted him as writing that a new theory of nature to belittle herself on this side of the Atlantic might explain why the American Chestnut is smaller. He was referring to naturalist Buffon's theory that cultivated varieties represent a higher state of evolution, and that natural varieties were considered degenerate. How much do you think a preference for non native species in the importation of your approved European varieties were responsible for the blight?

Dr. Davis  
Yeah, it's a very important point, I think. And it kind of gets back to this notion that that that the nursery men at least did not necessarily think the American Chestnut Tree was the perfect tree. And this This is an important thing to keep in mind. Because if we're if we're going to bring back the American Chestnut for commercial reasons, you know, as a nut producer, we kind of, we've kind of already gone through a phase where the commercial nut growers said this isn't the best tree for that. In fact, there was this bias against it, as you say, going all the way back to Thomas Jefferson who believed that, that trees that had sort of interaction with humans over time, you know, through out history, they produce larger nuts and therefore, they should be our focus. Now Jefferson argued against Buffon and argued against this because he was a big promoter of America. But But still, there was some, there's some truth in the fact that American chestnut nuts were smaller. And that by the late 1800s, almost all the recipe books in America, were calling for the use of European chestnuts, because they were just so much easier to, you know, to prepare for the kitchen. Keep in mind that when a chestnut is roasted, you have to cut in a little X in it, because if you don't, it's going to explode. If you've got a peal, the chestnut entirely, let's say that's a lot of work for the little small chestnuts. The American chestnut is more like a nickel, whereas a European chestnut is more like a quarter. So the the, you know, the commercial nut growers were not, you know, they were very pragmatic. And so they're the ones importing all these European varieties, because they just thought the American Chestnut was not the tree for that. Now, on the other hand, the American tree was producing, you know, literally tons of mass tons of nuts in the forest. So as a wildlife tree, as a wild tree is part of an ecosystem, you could say it was the perfect tree, you know, nothing beat it. And I'm a big fan of that aspect of the American Chestnut. But as a commercial nut, it had its problems. And that is why right? All these people were importing all these first European varieties than later Japanese varieties in order to make up for sort of that that problem associated with the American chestnut tree. And it's that issue, right? It's that importation of these knots that brought the the cryphonectria parasitica fungus that ultimately wipes out the tree. So you could argue that the American Chestnut had been the perfect tree. They never would have been importing trees in order to, you know, improve the nut production process.

Steve Taylor  
This is your host, Steve Taylor, and we will be back right after this.

Theresa Church  
Global Justice Ecology Project partners with small nonprofits, when a group or organization whose non for profit work closely aligns with our mission by becoming a fiscal sponsor. This helps them minimize bureaucracy, so they can focus on their crucial work for ecological and social justice, forest protection and human rights. GJEP is a co founder and coordinator for the campaign to stop GE trees, both in North America and globally. The campaign to stop GE trees is a national and international alliance of organizations united towards prohibiting the ecologically and socially devastating release of genetically engineered trees into the environment. Their mission is to protect forests and biodiversity and provide support to communities threatened by the dangerous release of genetically engineered trees. For more information and to sign the petition to stop genetic engineering and our forests, visit stop ge trees.org

Steve Taylor  
Welcome back to breaking green. A section of your book was about Appalachia, and how the nut was more than just a delicacy for some in that community. That for them, it was actually a major part of their diet. And and was very important for commerce.

Dr. Davis  
Well, it was de facto currency. And you know, don't get me wrong if I argue that, you know, the chestnut, the American Chestnut, not was not the perfect nut, it's still as important as almost, you know, currency. So they were still you know, exporting literally tons train car loads of chestnuts to the big cities in the Northeast. So yes, Appalachian residents would go out in the fall and they would gather nuts and they would sell them usually at the local store. I gave an example there was an attorney's office in Georgia, you could pay for an attorney services using chestnuts. You could get a newspaper subscription using chestnuts. If you wanted to trade at the local store for sugar or coffee or shoes or pencils, you would pay in chestnuts. So it really became sort of the de facto currency for residents in the Appalachians

Steve Taylor  
at what time in history. What decade of what century was the American Chestnut declared functionally extinct?

Dr. Davis  
One of the things I point out in the book And one of the early readers of the book said, you know, this book needs a, you know, a better plot and that, you know, you have to build up to this big event. And the big event is the blight, and then the blight wipes out everything. And that's sort of the, you know, that's the story you need to tell. But see, the problem with that is that even after the blight hits the northeast, it literally takes another half century to make it all the way down to Mississippi, in central Georgia. So there's this period of 50 years where the trees are still alive, and still impacting the lives of people. So you're absolutely right, people in Appalachia continue to have a very, you know, very intimate relationship with the American chestnut, right up until the 1940s. And in some places up into the 1950s. So, you know, it's, it's a really much more complicated tale to tell, than to simply say, you know, the chestnut tree was this wonderful tree, and then the blight hits, and then they're all gone. And, you know, woe is us because, as I say, before, there was an entire another half century where the trees continue to live. And even today, as I point out in the book, there's over 400 million living American chestnuts out there in the forest, as we speak. So one could argue that, you know, the chestnut is really not functionally extinct, that there there are still a number of trees out there in the forest today, they're still reproducing, of course, nothing like they did prior to the 1950s. But, you know, they're, they're not an endangered species, for sure.

Steve Taylor  
It's very interesting that you say they are not an endangered species since the popular narrative, the one that we hear all the time is that they are, they're just gone. But as you know, with 400 million living trees, it does bring into question whether the term functionally extinct is conveying a proper meaning here. Also, in the book, you discussed attempts to bring back the American chestnut tree, and that at one point, the United States government had test plots to bring back the American Chestnut, but in 1960 they were closed. Please tell us a little bit about those attempts. And the Clapper hybrid.

Dr. Davis  
You know, when the blight hits, folks, folks, you know, said what some alternatives? And one of the first responses was, let's try, you know, trees that appear to be somewhat blight resistant, and at that time, the trees that were the most blight resistant were Japanese chestnuts, or Chinese chestnuts. So they began crossbreeding Japanese and Chinese chestnuts with the American Chestnut with the hopes that the blight resistance would be picked up by the American Chestnut. And that the trees would still have some characteristics of American chestnut but also blight resistant. The problem with this sort of early period, leading up to the Clapper hybrid is everything was kind of done randomly. You know, let's take a Chinese and bring it with an American and then that offspring breed it to another Chinese and then that offspring, let's do a Japanese trace and then back to an American. It was sort of willy nilly, and there wasn't there was really nothing systematic about those early hybrid reading programs. If a tree kind of look tall and straight, like an American, they clapped and said, Let's keep it in. And let's, you know, keep this process going. But without any kind of, you know, long term foresight. Along comes the Clapper hybrid. And the Clapper hybrid seems to push everyone's buttons. It's tall, it's straight, it appears to be blight resistant. And everyone was really excited about the tree. Even if the federal government said this could be the tree that we're one day going to reintroduce into the eastern the forest, and it's going to solve all our problems. Sadly, that did not happen. That tree eventually did get the blight. And it also the other clapper hybrids like the you know, the single tree that they had sort of isolated and said this was our sort of model tree, the poster child for this breeding program. They didn't grow fast enough. And this is the biggest problem we have even today with hybrid trees. For an American for a tree to walk, talk and act and act truly American, it needs to grow five or six feet in a single year. That way, it can sort of dominate the canopy and the forest. These hybrids tend to grow only two, three, maybe four feet per year, and therefore other tree species tend to overtake them. And that tree can and so the hybrids can never really become dominant in the forest as the American Chestnut once did. So, once they saw not only that the Clapper hybrid was not fully blight resistant, but also didn't grow fast enough, then they sort of gave up on it. Although some of the later breeders use some of that genetic stock some of the old Clapper hybrids and reintroduce them into modern breeding programs. So, you know, genetic provenance of the Clapper, however, didn't fully go away. And there's some trees out there today that have some of that heritage in.

Steve Taylor  
It's interesting that you talk about how fast they have to grow to become a dominant species. Because when this happened with a blight, we transitioned from Oak, chestnut, to oak, hickory in a lot of places. So if there is success in bringing back the chestnut, into the wild, to past levels, we're talking about a major ecological shift. It's not like there's just empty spots in the forest waiting for the return of American Chestnut trees.

Dr. Davis  
Right, you could argue that, you know, after a full century of having an oak, and oak hickory for the forest stand, the soils are going to be drier, more what more xeric and more xeric drier soils is going to make it much more difficult for the American Chestnut to survive. So there's going to be fewer places to bring the chestnut back, or at least I would argue then, then there were there were let's say a century ago. Because over the last century, the forest soils have literally changed and not so conducive for the flourishing of American Chestnut trees.

Steve Taylor  
Since the shuttering of the government programs. These types of attempts have been handed over to private organizations, such as the American Chestnut Foundation, and I, I love this title, the American Chestnut cooperators foundation. What did those efforts look like?

Dr. Davis  
Yes, the American Chestnut Cooperator Cooperators Foundation was founded by Gary Griffin and Lucile Griffith. And they are still going strong. They still have some orchards and trees that they've basically taken Native American chestnuts that they find in the forest that are naturally blight resistance. Now, keep in mind, these trees are very rare, we're talking about one of the one in a million tree, but there are some American chestnut trees out there that are sort of blight resistant, and they continue to survive. So their theory is that if you find you know, several of these trees and you breed them together, the offspring should also have this trait, this genetic trait of of being blight tolerant or blight resistant. So that's what they've been doing. You know, since the 1980s. They've been breeding trees they find in the forests that are naturally blight resistant, and they breed the offspring of those trees to each other. And I think not exactly sure which year but I think around 2015, they claimed that 10% of the progeny of their trees were showing significant levels of blight resistance.

Steve Taylor  
So they're not using hybrids. But then you have the American Chestnut Foundation, which has had a bit of a different approach. With a backcross breeding program.

Dr. Davis  
They sort of introduced this back crossbreeding program where they were became much more systematic in their approach. So yes, they would create a hybrid tree which was half Chinese and half American. And then they would inoculate that tree with a blight. And if the tree showed some levels of light resistance, then they would breed that tree back to an American. That tree then was more than 50  50 at that point, let's say three quarters. That tree was also inoculated inoculated with a blight. And if it showed, if it showed some certain levels of blight resistance, it was then bred back to an American chestnut. So now see, that's more systematic, we're always going to breed back to the American variety and each successive generation is going to be more American. So that was the thinking and that's why the back crossbreeding method was seen as different than the sort of more random approach of Clapper and some of the early chestnut breeders. The problem was that is that once you've got up to let's say, 94%, American chestnut, you were still having trees that weren't you know, growing fast enough, that we're still not fully blight resistant. And it now looks like we would have to, you know, keep breeding those trees back to the Americans, you know, again and again and again before we can get a tree that's fully blight resistant. So the back crossbreeding program has not sort of been the panacea that many individuals thought it would be, it may not be possible using that method in order to breed a blight resistant tree.

Steve Taylor  
Lois Melican was president of the Massachusetts Chapter of the American Chestnut Foundation. She and her husband Dennis, who was a board member of the organization resigned some years ago over the organization's support of genetically engineered trees. What can you tell us about that controversy?

Dr. Davis  
Yes. So actually, when I was still involved with the Georgia chapter, the American Chestnut Foundation, I began to see more and more interest in bringing in genetically modified trees or this GE approach to chestnut restoration. And I became very concerned, in fact, I think, after 2015, I no longer renewed my membership, because I really didn't like the direction that the American Chestnut Foundation was headed in terms of using genetically modified trees. So I think in the case of these two individuals, there may have been discussion about possibly Monsanto at the time, or one of the large companies donating funds to the American Chestnut Foundation or somehow being involved in the breeding program. And I think that was one of the their concerns and why they eventually resigned.

Steve Taylor  
Well, the American Chestnut Foundation is now supporting efforts by Dr. Powell, of the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry to release a genetically engineered American chestnut tree into the wild. In your book, you refer to this as a massive and irreversible experiment. Could you tell us about his genetically engineered tree the Darling 58 and Dr. Paul's controversial proposal?

Dr. Davis  
Yeah, so his tree has a wheat gene inserted into it. So this tree is an American chestnut tree, but it also has a wheat gene. So that's what that's why we call it a transgenic tree. It's a tree that has another species genetic materials and other species in it. The wheat gene causes the tree to produce oxalic oxidase, which is sort of like an antacid. The fungus kills the American Chestnut Tree the cryphonectria parasitica fungus, by producing oxalic acid. So this oxalic acid is the culprit. The oxalate oxidase that is produced by the transgenic trees is supposed to sort of keep the fungus from harming and killing the tree. So that's in theory, how it's supposed to work. However, I've seen some photographs of trees lately. The darling 58 tree, for example, that still gets cankers, and still looks pretty ugly, and doesn't look to be like at this point, and these trees are small trees, but they don't look to be certainly not fully blight resistant, and they're showing signs of cankers. Now it's true, maybe the trees are, are surviving to a certain level. But the point is that if you really want to know if this, this method is going to be effective, you have to look at a tree that's 10 years old, 15 years old, 20 years old. And I argue in the book that until you have a tree transgenic tree that's 50 years old and doing what it's supposed to do, you will not know the effectiveness of this particular chestnut restoration program. And it could be that, you know, the, the the oxalate oxidase will no longer be effective with an older mature tree, that it just won't produce enough of oxolate oxidase in the sales in order to defeat the fungus.

Steve Taylor  
Well, we have not seen a mature Darlene 58. And we don't even know if Poewll's tree will work or what the impact it will have on the environment. But Powell has petitioned the government, in particular, the United States Department of Agriculture to  deregulate it, and to allow it to be released into the wild. In your book, you explain how that is rife with potential unintended consequences.

Dr. Davis  
Right, right. So without knowing, you know, the long term impact of this gene insertion event, not only on the tree, but also on the ecosystem. It's way too premature to allow these trees but to be released in the wild. So I wrote a response to the petition to the Powell's petition to have the trees deregulated, and I wrote an official response saying that I thought it was way too soon and it shouldn't be happen. But I also entered my response to the petition by saying at the very least, we should demand an environmental impact statement be done. And sure enough, several months later, the USDA APHIS has decided that yes, they will do a full blown environmental impact study, before giving, you know, authority to release the trees in the wild. I also wrote a response to that announcement and said, Okay, I'm glad you're doing this. But you know, this should also be done properly should be done right. And there should be a proper comment period, even after you release this environmental impact statement and make sure that all these different issues are addressed. So that's where we are now we're waiting to see this environmental impact statement, what's in it and whether or not they're going to, you know, one of the things that environmental impact statements do is they announce whether or not they're going to recommend releasing the tree or not. So those sort of show their cards a little bit in this draft. It's called a draft environmental impact statement. They will sort of show their hand and say, Yes, we think this is a good idea or not, but I believe they're leaning towards deregulating the tree.

Steve Taylor  
But how do you do an environmental impact when you haven't even seen a mature darling 58. Also, in your book, you cite Dr. Paul Sisko, who has a doctorate in plant genetics from Cornell University, and who is a former staff geneticist with the American Chestnut Foundation. He said that there needs to be 50 years of testing prior to release given that the trees are long lived organisms. He also is concerned that since they have only tested young trees, that they do not know whether these genes will have unintended side effects on the trees, or the organisms that interact with the trees as the trees mature. Also, Dr. Martha crouch, who has a PhD in developmental biology is cited to saying these prototype trees should be confined to test plots not let loose. It's a startling proposal to after decades and decades of breeding programs to now just genetically alter it. And and to say that we need to deregulate it, and immediately release it into our forests. To me, the unwillingness to wait and do a proper assessment, and to see what a mature mature tree looks like, it just smacks of careerism, putting one's career over the environment and good science.

Dr. Davis  
Right. Yeah, it's not really good science, right? Because good science you need you have predictable results. But you cannot have a predictable result. In something that is totally unknown. We really do not know how this transgenic tree is going to behave 10 years from now, or as Paul Sisko says, 50 years from now, right? And until then, only then if we're true scientist, can we then say with 98 99% certainty that XY and Z will happen? So I think we're just way too premature. And I wish there was a way that you know, we could sort of convince folks that it's way too premature. But I think the Pro GE folks are going to say, well, we have to do this in order to see how they're going to behave in the wild. But I would argue that that's that's the wrong sort of logical way of thinking we have to keep them contained, then see how they behave, and then decide whether or not this is something that we can do. Because you know, if, if they're not if if the oxalate oxidase is not effective over the long term, do we really want to, you know, plant 10,000 100,000 of these trees out there in the forest so that they just eventually die of the blight and spread the blight around to other trees that may have been sort of naturally blight resistant.

Steve Taylor  
You note that there was a genetically engineered cotton in India that had unintended consequences, and actually worsened what it was trying to control?

Dr. Davis  
Yeah, that was the pink bollworm. So this was a moth actually, but in its larval stage, it's sort of a caterpillar like to you know, a worm that eats cotton balls and literally did millions of dollars of damage to the cotton farms cotton plantations of India. So they you know, their genetic engineering tried to make the, the plant resistant to this pink bollworm but actually, it had the opposite effect. The pink bollworm develop, develop, developed a resistance and became more aggressive. So they actually eventually did more damage to the to the cotton plant instead of less. So again, this is sort of the unintended consequences. Will the fungus behave in a predictable, predictable way when these genetically modified trees are released into the wild, we really don't know that now. They will argue that the fungus is not being killed. Therefore, or it's not being eliminated, therefore, they shouldn't you shouldn't see sort of the fungus develop a natural resistance to this. But I'm not really sure, we don't really probably will not know for sure how the fungus will behave until the trees were would be actually released into the forest. And they've also said that they're going to try to create a tree with a new trigger so that oxalate oxidase only increases when the fungus attacks the tree. Therefore, the oxalate oxidase, wil not be constantly all the time present in the cells of the tree. But there again, you've got another level another mechanism they have to worry about in terms of plant mutations, or what's going to happen to the to the tree later on.

Steve Taylor  
Well, it's cold comfort that Powell recognizes the problem, but but thinks he has a fix because if he's wrong, the consequences could be very, very dire. And what's particularly disturbing to me about this is that unlike a genetically engineered tomato or or other consumable item it it's not a personal choice whether to eat it or not, we're talking about releasing genetically engineered organisms into the wild into the forest inalterably changing them and forests are everyone's legacy.

Dr. Davis  
Right, right. Yeah, the whole, you know, Eastern deciduous forest legacy. So you can have, you know, broader implications to the entire eastern forest ecosystem. And, you know, that's why I pointed out in the book is if there's one, you know, thing that you need to know about the American Chestnut, it's a cautionary tale. Therefore, as we move ahead into the future, we need to be really cautious about what we do with this tree. Because if you know if, if I've learned anything is that you have to be really careful with you know, how you treat this species, because we've made some really bad decisions in the past. And we really can't afford to make another bad decision if we want to really restore this tree back to the forest. It's truly a cautionary tale. And we really need to be careful about the decisions that we make going forward.

Steve Taylor  
Thank you, Dr. Davis, for taking the time to talk to us about your new book, The American chestnut, an environmental history.

Dr. Davis  
Thank you. Thanks for having me.

Steve Taylor  
You have been listening to Breaking Green, a Global Justice Ecology Project podcast. To learn more about Global Justice Ecology Project, visit global justice ecology.org. Breaking Green is made possible by tax deductible donations by people like you. Please help us lift up the voices of those working to protect forests, defend human rights, and expose false solutions. Simply text give g i v e to 1-716-257-4187 That's 1-716-257-4187