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

Breaking Green

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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.
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Chapters

1. Breaking Green Introduction (00:00:00)

2. Episode Introduction (00:00:28)

3. Introduction of Dr. Donald Davis (00:00:50)

4. Environmental History (00:02:03)

5. Scope of Book (00:03:14)

6. We Were Warned (00:04:40)

7. Nurseries vs Regulators (00:07:52)

8. American Frontier (00:08:37)

9. Logging of the American Chestnut (00:11:11)

10. First Days of the Blight (00:15:49)

11. Commercial Nut Production and European Species (00:18:35)

12. Break with Theresa Church (00:22:19)

13. Apalachia (00:23:29)

14. Not Endangered (00:24:45)

15. Early US Government Test Plots (00:26:37)

16. Forests soils have changed since American Chestnut Dominance (00:30:30)

17. Revival Attempts Without Hybrids / The American Chestnut Cooperators Foundation (00:31:37)

18. The American Chestnut Foundation / Back Crossbreeding (00:33:16)

19. Genetic Engineering Controversy at The American Chestnut Foundation (00:35:08)

20. Powell's Darling Transgenic Darling 58 (00:36:27)

21. Petition to Deregulate and Risk of Unintended Consequences (00:38:57)

22. Experts Warn of Risk (00:41:13)

23. Example of Unintended Consequence (00:44:07)

24. Rush toward Irreversible Experiment (00:46:15)

25. Outro (00:47:56)