Breaking Green

American Chestnut Revival on A Scientist’s Land In Maine

• Global Justice Ecology Project / Host Steve Taylor • Season 5 • Episode 7

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A celebrated naturalist’s Maine hillside holds thousands of wild American chestnuts thriving across three generations, challenging the claim that the species cannot return without genetic engineering. We explore the history of blight, restoration strategies, climate shifts, and why evidence from the field matters.

• origins of the blight and early containment attempts
• limits of Chinese hybrid chestnuts in forest settings
• selective breeding for American traits with blight tolerance
• push for GE chestnuts and its one-gene promise
• documented natural resurgence on Bernd Heinrich’s land
• seed dispersal by birds and squirrels across miles
• published mapping, burr counts, and multi‑generation stands
• climate change moving the chestnut range north
• reports of wild chestnuts in gap openings across the Northeast
• missteps and credibility issues in GE field trials
• how to see the documentary and share chestnut sightings

Premieres December 4 at thewildamericanchestnut.org. “People can go there, sign up for the movie, and share your chestnut story.”

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SPEAKER_02:

Welcome to Breaking Green. This is your host, Steve Taylor. And on this episode, we're getting into the holiday spirit. Just in time for the holidays, Global Justice Ecology Project is releasing a new documentary, The Wild American Chestnut. Regular listeners will know that there has been an attempt to genetically engineer this species and release it into the wild. But this new documentary demonstrates that there is a natural comeback already underway in Western Maine. On this episode of Breaking Green, we will talk with Ann Peterman, Executive Director of Global Justice Ecology Project. Ann Peterman, welcome to Breaking Green.

SPEAKER_01:

Thanks so much for having me on again, Steve.

SPEAKER_02:

Well, it's our pleasure, and uh it's we're we're going into the holiday season, and I think we have something very exciting to talk about. Global Justice Ecology Project is producing a short-form documentary, environmental investigation on the wild American chestnut and its uh apparent revival in western Maine. Could you tell us a little bit about that?

SPEAKER_01:

That's right. Yeah, we've been hearing for a while the stories about this man, Baron Heinrich, who is uh actually a pretty well-known naturalist and a professor emeritus from the University of Vermont, and that he has this, you know, very large number of wild American chestnut trees growing on his land that are healthy. They don't have any um sign of the blight. And so we we wanted to see this for ourselves. We we've been hearing about it, and it just feels like this is the kind of thing that we need right now, right? We need some kind of positive energy that we can go into next year with understanding that, you know, nature is resilient, it's coming back, the ch the wild American chestnut's coming back, you know, with the help of uh, you know, Barrent planted the first two and a few others, but the rest of the thousands, literally thousands, on his land have been planted by blue jays and squirrels. So it's it's really an amazing success story for this tree that was decimated by this introduced blight from Asia about 125 years ago.

SPEAKER_02:

Wow. So let's let's look at that a little closer. So the the in 1904 uh there was a blight uh and that as well as logging and and and other pressures on the on the uh wild American chestnut caused it to be what many uh people have been referring to as functionally extinct, uh and that has led some people to try to produce a hybrid by crossbreeding or and actually back crossbreeding to find more blight-resistant strains. And then also the controversial um uh proposal which uh Global Justice Ecology Project and the Stop GE Trees campaign has vigorously opposed, which is to create uh a transgenic tree to release into the wild. So could you talk a little bit about what has been going on when it comes to uh approaches uh to revive the tree leading up to this uh uh investigation and this uh this great uh experience on uh Dr. Heinrich's uh uh land and seeing all these 100% natural chestnuts.

SPEAKER_01:

Sure. Yeah, there's been quite a number, pretty much since the blight was discovered back in the early part of the last century, there have been efforts to figure out how to deal with it, how to stop it from spreading. And, you know, that included massive clear-cut swaths. They actually cut a couple of mile uh wide swath through the entire state of Pennsylvania, trying to stop the blight from getting any further south, um, because it started in in uh actually in the Bronx Zoo uh in New York. And anyway, there were a lot of um, there have been a lot of attempts. One of the first attempts was breeding the American chestnut with a Chinese chestnut, which the Chinese chestnuts are naturally resistant to the blight, and it was an Asian chestnut that was brought over that brought the blight with it. Um, classic uh, you know, corporate globalization or or globalization, globalizing, moving plants around globally is never a good idea because of all the pests and pathogens that come along with it. But anyway, that's another story. Um, so we have the uh the attempts to hybridize the American chestnut with the Chinese chestnut, there have been a lot of successes with that, but it's not a forest tree, okay? It's good for orchards. People are growing them here and there um in orchards and producing lots of chestnuts to sell, but you can't put those trees back in the forest. The even though they've got a tree that's now 1516 American chestnut and one-sixteenth Chinese chestnut, it still has the physical characteristics of a Chinese chestnut. So it's kind of short and squat, kind of like an orchard tree. It doesn't do well, it doesn't compete well in the forest. So that has not been a real good restoration tree as far as bringing it back to the forests. Um, then there have been attempts, there's an organization called the American Chestnut Cooperators Foundation, which is in Virginia, that has been finding surviving, large, large surviving American chestnuts and that have some level of blight resistance and breeding them together for decades, and they have what they believe are successfully blight-resistant American chestnuts. They still get the blight, but they survive it. They aren't killed by it. Um, so that's a pretty exciting development. And then what we're hearing about more recently through our work against the genetically engineered chestnut is people coming forward and saying, hey, we have uh, you know, wild American chestnuts growing by us and they seem to be doing really well, which has given us this idea that they are finding a way to come back on their own. You know, they are finding a way to be blight resistant all on their own, or to somehow survive the blight. And so that's why we went up to Baron Heinrich's land to see this huge population, thousands of American wild American chestnuts that are growing and and growing very uh well and very healthily.

SPEAKER_02:

So it's also important to note that he didn't plant all of these, that he planted a few, and that and that was w what, 40 years ago, 45 years ago, and that they have themselves been self-propagating, and you now have uh, you know, uh three generations of trees. So um what was that like uh seeing those when we've been told all these years, and it's always been, you know, like like top line up or bottom line up front, uh, you know, chestnuts can't survive on their own. You know, they may sprout, but they'll die off from the blight. What was it like seeing that with your own eyes?

SPEAKER_01:

It was it was amazing. I mean, it was amazing to see that. Um so Barrent showed us the first two trees that he planted, which are quite large. I mean, as you mentioned, they're about 45 years old at this point, and they're at least 40 feet tall. Um, the the diameter at breast height, the DBH, is at least 24 inches. I mean, they're quite large trees, and they have not only been producing lots and lots of offspring, lots and lots of seedlings and saplings that are growing in the vicinity, and even Barrett said they tracked them with a bunch of university students. They tracked one at as far away as a mile from these parent trees. But not only that, some of these trees that have not just been planted by people, because he only planted a few, that have been planted by blue jays and squirrels, have themselves been growing up into mature trees. And now some of them are producing nuts, um, producing firs and nuts. And that is um that has been truly incredible. So those are now producing offspring. So we have the children of his original trees and the grandchildren, if you will, of those original trees. And talking to Bear, he said, yeah, I have no reason to think that these trees just won't go on and on and on. I mean, this appears to be a successful restoration population.

SPEAKER_02:

And so he feels that they are naturally blight resistant.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, he's not sure exactly, you know, why they continue to grow, but it's he says it, you know, it seems that way. They don't get the blight, they don't, they're not killed by the blight. But interestingly, it's not just on his land where the trees are thriving. He has given away nuts and seedlings to other people in other states, you know, Vermont and elsewhere, that are growing the trees, and those trees are also healthy. So it's not just that there's, you know, maybe his popul maybe his land is a little blight, um, you know, has no blight on it. It's these trees go to other places that have historically had blight, and they do fine as well. So there's something going on there that's very interesting, and he hasn't done a detailed study on it to understand exactly what it is. He's just enjoying the fact that he's surrounded by chestnuts.

SPEAKER_02:

Aaron Ross Powell But he has done a detailed study on the propagation of these trees and actually has uh published a scientific paper. And I I think it's worth saying that uh Dr. Heinrich uh uh ha has 200 scientific papers to his name, over 200 scientific papers to his name, over 20 books, uh biology books. Uh he is a well-known and well-respected naturalist, biologist, and author. And um he is he's very excited about these trees. He has published in scientific journals, but there seems to be a dearth of of response from those who who who who are dead set on on creating a genetically engineered variety to put out into the wild.

SPEAKER_01:

I'll talk about two specific instance instances. He wrote, Bart wrote, uh Dr. Heinrich wrote an op-ed for the New York Times about the wild American chestnuts coming back on his land. And this was, oh, I don't know, maybe 10 years ago. And the response that he got was from Dr. William Powell, the researcher who's been, you know, from the beginning trying to create a genetically engineered American chestnut tree. And Dr. Powell was completely dismissive of Dr. Heinrich's um paper, uh op-ed in the in the New York Times, saying, Oh, well, clearly these are these are hybrids or there's something going on here that these are not wild American chestnuts. And when we were up there, when we met with Barnt, we saw the paperwork. You know, these are wild American chestnuts. He got them from Michigan, where they have been growing quite successfully. Um, and you know, he imported, I think he said two dozen altogether. He planted some in Maine, he planted some in Vermont, and they've all thrived. So, you know, maybe there's something special about that Michigan population of chestnuts that they came from. Um, but then Baird had another study that he did with students from the University of Vermont, where he was a professor, who came up and took a look at the uh the locations. They did, they put GPS markers on all of the chestnuts that they could find. And they couldn't find all of them because his land is 600 acres and there are thousands of chestnuts. But they found, I think they documented in the paper, 1,300 chestnuts growing on his property. Um, so you know, this is not just somebody who's saying, oh, yeah, there's a lot of chestnuts. This is somebody who is a scientist and who has, you know, done studies to see just how many chestnuts are growing on the property, and there are quite a number of them that we saw, and many that we never had a chance to see because we were only on a small portion of the property, but we we literally saw hundreds of them.

SPEAKER_02:

You know what's interesting is that I saw the uh the receipts and the documentation. Those were purchased uh in 1982, and that's well before any genetic engineering attempts. And I don't even think there was a cross-breeding program back then. And and and this man and those students uh from the university who were documenting all those should should indeed know the difference between uh an American chestnut and and and and some nonnative variety. Uh so it's very interesting that uh Dr. Powell was so dismissive. And it's rather poignant that it was his own program that uh was researching uh or testing the wrong uh genetically engineered variant for 15 years, and this famous debacle where where they had uh actually done field tests on the wrong tree for 15 years.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, yeah. The American Chestnut Foundation, which is, you know, very pro-genetic engineering and has been since about 2013. They got, I think they got somebody from Monsanto on their board, and all of a sudden they became very pro-genetic engineering. But um they they were the ones who blew the whistle on the uh environmental science, excuse me, this the College of Environmental Science and Forestry at SUNY Syracuse, uh, where Dr. Powell was leading the American Chestnut Restoration Proje project. And uh they pointed out they were partners, those two organizations, ESF and the American Chestnut Foundation, were partners in the GE program. And they pointed out that six years prior, this was in December of 2023, that they made this revelation. Six years prior, they had been given the wrong pollen. So they were supposed to get pollen from a of a genetically engineered tree known as Darling 58, and instead they got pollen from a tree called Darling 54, which had a serious genetic defect. And so they've been testing for six years this genetically defective tree that didn't grow well, that was killed by the blight. One of four of the trees died before it even, you know, got out of the ground. It was it was really ridiculous. Uh, you know, we're supposed to trust these people, these researchers, to understand how forests work and to be able to genetically engineer a tree that will survive in the forest, and they don't even know what pollen they're using. I mean, come on. So the fact that we've now not just Dr. Pine Rich, but other people in Massachusetts, in New York, I mean Pennsylvania, there are all of these people coming forward and saying, we have large surviving wild American chestnuts. We see wild American chestnuts coming back here and there. There was a place in Massachusetts where there was a tornado that went through, and it there are all kinds of wild American chestnut seedlings coming in now where that opening was made. You know, they are having a return, they are having a resurgence. And that is just the fact of the matter. And people can poo-poo it, they can say that it's not real, but the fact of the matter is we've seen it, we've documented it, it's there.

SPEAKER_02:

Aaron Powell At this point, I'd like to go to a soundtrack from your upcoming documentary and listen to Dr. Heinrich uh talk a little bit about how he thinks these may be blight-resistant trees.

SPEAKER_01:

A lot of the work that our organization is doing is looking at the potential impacts of these genetically engineered American chestnuts, and the proponents of those argue that we have to have them because they can't survive otherwise, that they're functionally extinct. Um I guess, you know, living in the middle of thousands of American chestnuts that are wilding themselves, I guess I would ask you what your ideas and thoughts are on that.

SPEAKER_00:

All I can tell you is here there's no no not the slightest hint of any blight. And the thousands and thousands of trees.

SPEAKER_02:

So yeah, that's that's that's that's very interesting. And you mention and you mentioned Massachusetts. It's, you know, that's a story where there was a tornado that came through, and then these natural American chestnuts just started to pop up and grow. And that's what we hear from uh uh Dr. Heinrich in in in the upcoming documentary is that where there's an opening, these chestnuts, in his words, really take off.

SPEAKER_01:

Exactly. So they it it it's almost like they're sitting in the forest in the in the dark of the forest, these little seedlings, and they're just waiting for an opening. They're just waiting for a little bit of sunlight and then they take off. So he has, you know, uh all over his property chestnuts of all kinds of sizes. Many of them are are small on the ground, waiting for the sun, but then he has some that are 15 feet tall, 20 feet tall, 40 feet tall. I mean, they're all over the property, and they are the ones that are old enough are producing healthy burrs, you know, and each burr has three nuts in it. He counted, he did a count of one of his trees. Um, he wanted to know how many burrs it put out. One of the original trees that he planted, the 45-year-old tree. And he said he counted 4,000 burrs that it this tree put out in one season. That's 12,000 nuts that this one tree put out. So, I mean, it's just incredible what's going on on his property and what we're hearing that's being echoed on other people's land and in public lands as well.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, it's it's it's really exciting to hear this. Uh, you know, um the there's so much talk, and just, you know, even I think there's a PBS documentary that where they talked about there might be a sapling here or there, but they're really zombie trees and they're and they're not going to live long. Uh they're copus sprouts or whatever. I I I you know I I'm I'm not a tree guy, I I just have to admit. But they they say that there's these these sprouts and you know, and then they they quickly suscumb to the blight. But you have three generations here. Um and for whatever reason there seems to be a rebounding in the population. Um and you know, uh the the the doctor uh even I think in the in the documentary, in the upcoming documentary, said he's not sure exactly why, but uh you know, it might not just be due to one gene. I mean, and and there's all this focus by uh people trying to genetically engineer a tree by inserting a particular gene, they might not be seeing uh the the the forest from the proverbial tree per se.

SPEAKER_01:

Right. Yeah, clearly and as as the people who are researching the Chinese chestnut have found there are many, many, many genes in the in the Chinese chestnut that are involved in blight resistance. So, you know, it's not a matter of they they say that the researchers that they can put one gene from wheat into the tree and it will successfully be blight resistant um, you know, forever. And it's it's really crazy. It's not how genes work, it's not how genomes work, it's not how trees work, it's not how forests work. I mean, everything's interconnected and uh things evolve and things change, and there are different environmental stresses that cause trees to basically turn genes on and off in response. And, you know, this idea that one gene can make the difference um for the future of the American chestnut tree is completely nonsense.

SPEAKER_02:

So uh climate change. Uh is there a possibility that the range is changing, that that could be part of uh the factor of what's going on here?

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, oh, absolutely. In in fact, one of the the the new head of the um College of Environmental Science and Forestry American Chestnut Restoration Program is Andy Newhouse. And back in 2018, I saw a presentation by Andy Newhouse where he talked about the climate change impacts on the range of the American chestnut. And the map that he showed was the American chestnut, which the current range is basically some of northern New England down into the southern Appalachians. That's kind of where it is, and there's a little tiny bit in southern Ontario. But they're showing uh his map was showing how with climate change pressure, the new range of the American chestnut is very much moving north into New England and even north into eastern Canada. So, yeah, there's a huge um, there's going to be huge impact on where the American chestnut will grow in the future because of climate change. And I think that could be a real clue as to why the chestnuts are doing so well at Dr. Heinrich's land in Maine, is because that's where the chestnuts are heading because of climate change pressures, um, which is exciting because they're doing amazing. So if they are there and they start moving north, and you know, New England and northern New York or whatever have all of these wild American chestnuts on them, I think that's that's a pretty exciting success story.

SPEAKER_02:

Also, the American chestnut could do some emigration to Canada as well.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, exactly. I mean, you know, trees clearly don't respect borders. Um, so yeah, they'll be moving up into the Maritimes. And and uh there's a group called the Canadian Chestnut Council in Canada that's already working with the particular variety of American chestnut that grows on the other side of uh the Great Lakes. And um, they are very anti-genetically engineered chestnut as well. So they've been a really good partner in the campaign. So, yeah, I mean, there's just so much potential for the American chestnut coming back. It's such a crime, it's such a shame to hear these naysayers who are like, oh, it's functionally extinct, it's never gonna come back on its own, and blah, blah, blah. And you know, and there's just so much evidence to the contrary. I just don't know why they go so negative. It doesn't make sense.

SPEAKER_02:

Aaron Powell Well, it is a good news story for the holiday, and we can all and we can all use some good news. Um anything you'd like to tell us about uh this uh short-form documentary? I mean, what's what is its purpose? Uh what do you hope to accomplish with it?

SPEAKER_01:

Well, the purpose of this documentary is to show people this amazing comeback of the American chestnut so they could see it with their own eyes. Uh you know, it's one thing to hear about it, it's one thing to read about it, it's another thing to see it, right? And of course, we saw it in person, which was amazing, but it we also took video of it so that people could see all of these chestnuts coming back, they could see how healthy they were, they could see that it's not just the first generation or the second generation, but actually three generations of uh healthy wild American chestnuts. We wanted people to be able to see that. And we wanted them to be able to hear from Dr. Heinrich about these chestnuts on his land and the story behind them. And it's, you know, it's just it's such a good, good news story that we wanted to share it.

SPEAKER_02:

And and Dr. Heinrich himself is such an interesting personality, such a and an accomplished scientist and noted author. This is going to be great to watch.

SPEAKER_01:

One more thing about Bernd Heinrich that was really interesting. Um, you know, he's in his 80s. He's retired, he's, you know, lives off the grid, he's writing some books. He's just a really interesting person. But then we were looking at the trees and he wanted to show us the burrs that were growing on the second generation trees, the ones that were planted by the blue jays as a result of the plant the original trees that he planted 45 years ago, but they weren't ripe. They were still at the top of the tree. So he just grabbed a branch and started climbing. And before we knew it, he was 25 feet up in the tree, you know, grabbing this uh chestnut burr and throwing it down to us so we could see it. And it was just like, wow, what what's what's going on here? I mean, you know, and then you you I know a little bit about Dr. Heinrich's history, and he was an ultra-long distance runner. I mean, this guy was just an incredible character. So it was wonderful to get a chance to see him and and uh see his chestnuts and hear his story. But um, but to see the movie, if people are interested in seeing the movie, we're we're going to premiere it on December 4th. And we have a website that has all the information, the registration for watching the movie and all of that, which is thewildamericanchestnut.org. So that's a pretty easy one to remember. Thewildamericanchestnut.org. People can go there, they can find more information, they can sign up for the movie, um, and let us know, you know, if you want to be in touch, if you want to help us, if you want to, if you have your own chestnut story, please share it. Share it on the uh on the website. That would be amazing.

SPEAKER_02:

Thank you, Ann Peterman, for joining us on Breaking Green.

SPEAKER_01:

Thank you so much, Keith.

SPEAKER_02:

You have been listening to Breaking Green, a Global Justice Ecology Project podcast. To learn more about Global Justice Ecology Project, visit globaljusticeecology.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 forest, defend human rights, and expose all solutions. Simply text or GIF at GIDE2 1716-2574187. That's 1716-257-4187.