February 18, 2024 • 42 mins
The American Chestnut Foundation has long supported a controversial plan to release genetically engineered chestnut trees into the wild.
The Tree was being developed by the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry (SUNY-ESF).
But now poor performance in field trials and the revelation that researchers had even been field testing the wrong tree prompted The American Chestnut Foundation to pull its support for the GE Tree. The American Chestnut Foundation has also called for SUNY-ESF to pull its application before the United States Department of Agriculture for deregulation of the tree.
On this episode of Breaking Green, we spoke with Anne Petermann. Petermann co- founded Global Justice Ecology Project in 2003.
She is the international coordinator of the Campaign to STOP GE Trees, which she also co founded. Petermann is a founding board member of the Will Miller Social Justice Lecture Series.
She has been involved in movements for forest protection and indigenous rights since 1991, and the international and national climate justice movements since 2004.
She participated in the founding of the Durban group for climate justice in 2004, in Durban, South Africa, and Climate Justice Now in 2007 at the Bali Indonesia UN climate conference.
Anne Petermann was adopted as an honorary member of the St. Francis- Sokoki band of the Abenaki in 1992 for her work in support of their struggle for state recognition. In 2000, she received the wild nature award for activist of the year.
We will also 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.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Steve Taylor (00:00):
Welcome to Breaking Green, a podcast by
Global Justice Ecology Project.
On Breaking Green.
We will talk with activists andexperts to examine the
intertwined issues of social,ecological and economic
injustice.
We will also explore some ofthe more outrageous proposals to
address climate andenvironmental crises that are
(00:22):
falsely being sold as green.
I am your host, steve Taylor.
The American ChestnutFoundation has long supported a
controversial plan to releasegenetically engineered chestnut
trees into the wild.
The tree was being developed bythe State University of New
York College of EnvironmentalScience and Forestry, also known
as SUNY ESF, but now poorperformance and field trials
(00:46):
prompted the American ChestnutFoundation to pull its support
for the GE tree.
The American ChestnutFoundation has also called for
SUNY ESF to pull its applicationbefore the United States
Department of Agriculture forderegulation of the tree.
On this episode of BreakingGreen, we will talk with Ann
Peterman and Dr Donald Davis.
(01:07):
Ann Peterman co-founded GlobalJustice Ecology Project in 2003.
She is the internationalcoordinator of the campaign to
stop GE trees, which she alsoco-founded.
Peterman is also a foundingboard member of the Will Miller
Social Justice Lecture Series.
Peterman has been involved inmovements for forest protection
(01:27):
and indigenous rights since 1991and the international and
national climate justicemovement since 2004.
Ann Peterman was adopted as anhonorary member of the St
Francis-Sikoki Band of theAbinacke in 1992 for her work in
support of their struggle forstate recognition.
In 2000, she received the WildNature Award for activist of the
(01:50):
year.
We will also talk with Dr DonaldDavis, author of the American
Chestnut and EnvironmentalHistory.
His exhaustive book exploreshow the American Chestnut tree
has shaped history, as well asthe cultural and environmental
significance of the onceubiquitous tree.
Davis is an independent scholar, author and former full bright
fellow.
He has authored or edited sevenbooks.
(02:13):
His book when there AreMountains and Environmental
History of the SouthernAppalachians won the prestigious
Philip D Reed EnvironmentalWriting Award.
Davis was also the foundingmember of the Georgia Chapter of
the American ChestnutFoundation, serving as its
president from 2005 to 2006.
He is currently employed by theHarvard Forest as a research
(02:35):
scholar and lives in WashingtonDC.
Ann Peterman, dr Donald Davis,welcome to Breaking Green.
Both of you have been guestsbefore on Breaking Green.
Dr Davis, you were on anepisode about the environmental
history of the American Chestnuttree and you have been on
(02:56):
several times, including anepisode on genetically
engineered trees.
This episode is about recentdevelopments on attempts to
deregulate a geneticallyengineered American Chestnut
tree.
So, Ann, could we please startoff with you?
Could you explain briefly whatis a Darling 58 genetically
engineered American Chestnuttree, what is it and who is
(03:19):
behind it?
Anne Petermann (03:21):
Sure, the Darling 58 genetically
engineered American Chestnuttree is an experimental
genetically engineered tree.
That is a tree that has beenworked on for quite a few years
at the State University of NewYork's College of Environmental
Science and Forestry up inSyracuse and it's gone through a
(03:43):
lot of iterations thegenetically engineered tree
American Chestnut tree untilthey finally came up with one
called the Darling 58.
It's obviously the 58th versionof a series of Darling
genetically engineered trees andthey're designed to be blight
tolerant.
So in the early part of the1900s many of the American
(04:06):
Chestnut trees growing up anddown the East Coast were
eradicated by a blight that wasintroduced from Asia.
And this is supposedly anattempt to bring the American
Chestnut back into the forest bymaking it blight tolerant by
using a gene from wheat, an OXOgene from wheat that is
(04:27):
resistant to that, that is,fungal resistance, has fungal
resistance and supposedly thiswas going to give the American
Chestnut tree blight tolerance.
So that was the idea behind itand ESF, the College of
Environmental Science andForestry, was pushing it really
hard with a lot of support fromindustry.
(04:50):
Actually, you know, fromdifferent timber industries had
come up with the idea quite afew years ago, decades ago
actually.
And then they also hadtechnical and financial support
from Arborgen, from Monsanto,from Duke Energy.
So it wasn't really all thataltruistic, but the American
Chestnut Foundation decided toget behind it because they also
(05:13):
thought genetic engineeringwould be a good way to bring
back the American Chestnut treefrom this blight that had done
such damage to its population.
Steve Taylor (05:22):
Dr Donald Davis, could you give us a quick
summary of what happened to theAmerican Chestnut?
Why is it considered afunctionally extinct tree?
Dr. Donald Davis (05:31):
Yeah, sure.
So up until the late 1800s theAmerican Chestnut was one of the
more common trees in theeastern United States, Although
my environmental history showedthat it probably wasn't as
common in certain parts of theeastern US than people had
thought.
But it certainly was.
You know, a ubiquitous tree.
(05:52):
It was most common in what theyused to call the Chestnut Belt,
which is kind of the southernAppalachian region, and as you
go towards New England it becameless and less common.
But it was a tree that had manyuses.
Not only could you eat the nutsbut you could make all kinds of
wooden products from the wood.
(06:12):
It was used for fodder.
The young tree shoots could befed to cattle, for example, or
even sheep.
So I had lots of uses.
It was very popular among people, especially in rural areas.
People, individuals always liketo have Chestnut trees growing
(06:35):
on their property, and in thelate 1800s they started
importing Japanese Chestnuts tosome of the largest nurseries in
the New York City region,including New Jersey, and those
Chestnuts, those JapaneseChestnuts that originated around
(06:56):
Tokyo, had the blight on themand the blight eventually leaves
the Japanese Chestnuts, startsspreading into the American you
know ecosystem and by 1904, ithad been detected there at the
Bronx Zoo and kind of.
(07:16):
The rest is history.
The blight spread rapidly,quickly and by 1950, you really
could consider the Americanchestnut functionally extinct,
meaning that most of the treesdid not reproduce, Although
today we're finding that to evenkind of be a misnomer because
(07:37):
we're finding more and moretrees in the wild that actually
are blooming and reproducing.
Steve Taylor (07:41):
So you're saying that the American chestnut is
surviving a bit more thansometimes reported in the
natural world?
Dr. Donald Davis (07:52):
Yes, some of the Forest Service Inventory
show there's many as two millionblooming chestnut trees in the
eastern forest today, and byblooming that means they're
blooming size.
So they're anywhere from, youknow, two inches in diameter to
eight or 10 inches in diameter.
So there's a lot of them outthere.
They tend to die after theybloom once or twice, so you
(08:16):
don't necessarily find lots ofreproduction, although we're
seeing some of that now in thenorthern states.
Maine, for example, has awonderful grove of chestnut
trees.
More than a thousandindividuals are surviving there
in southern Maine on the farm ofBurnt Heinrich, and of course
(08:38):
he got his trees from Michiganand there's several stands in
Michigan that are doing well andgrowing and reproducing as well
.
Steve Taylor (08:48):
So you are the author of an American Chestnut,
an environmental history, a bookwhich is comprehensive.
I recommend it to our listeners.
But you are also a foundingmember of the Georgia chapter of
the American ChestnutFoundation, so you are a fan of
the tree.
It's clear when you read yourhistory.
(09:08):
You talk about the cultural andhistorical significance of the
tree, but you were critical, orare critical, about attempts to
produce a genetically engineeredvariant.
Dr. Donald Davis (09:25):
That's right and you could say I've parted
ways with the American ChestnutFoundation once they started
putting so much emphasis andfocusing on the GE trees.
I thought that was a bad idea.
I had fairly long discussionswith a former CEO of the
American Chestnut Foundationabout this.
(09:46):
In fact, I was also thegovernmental affairs
representative to the AmericanChestnut Foundation for several
years when I lived here inWashington DC.
I would go on the hill and dosome lobbying on their behalf,
but again once I saw they wereputting so much emphasis on the
GE trees, I said I can't reallyendorse this and started
(10:10):
promoting more what they'redoing at the American Chestnut
Cooperators Foundation, which isusing pure American trees and
trying to breed trees that areresistant to the bite, and
they've been somewhat successfulat that.
Steve Taylor (10:26):
Right, you mentioned the trees of Dr
Heinrich's property and also theAmerican Chestnut Cooperators
Foundation, I believe, has comeout against the genetically
engineered variant.
Ann Piederman, why is thecampaign to stop GE trees
opposed to the Darling 58?
Anne Petermann (10:43):
Thanks, steve.
Yeah, well, the campaign tostop genetically engineered
trees, as implied by our name,is very concerned about the idea
of genetically engineeringtrees, and when we learned about
the genetically engineeredAmerican Chestnut tree, or the
work to produce geneticallyengineered American Chestnut
trees, which was back in about2011 or so, this was something
(11:07):
that was very concerning, notjust because of the genetically
and genetic engineering of thetree itself, but because the
plans were, once it wasgenetically engineered, to
release it into the forestswhere it was designed, to spread
its pollen and seeds andcontaminate the remaining
populations of wild AmericanChestnuts, which Dr Davis just
(11:30):
mentioned.
There are more than 2 millionthat are actively flowering and
producing chestnuts.
So the idea that they wanted tocreate these genetically
engineered trees and thenrelease them to spread
irreversibly and uncontrollably,without regulation of any kind,
was terribly concerning to us,and so we waged a campaign for
(11:56):
jeez, I guess it's been over adecade now to make sure that
these trees are not releasedinto the environment.
So when it all of a sudden, onDecember 8th, the American
Chestnut Foundation announcedthat the trees were not doing
what they had expected them todo and they were now saying that
they should not be approved bythe USDA for release into wild
(12:19):
forests.
We were quite surprised by it,but we were not surprised that
the trees didn't work.
We work with a lot of differentscientists in different areas
who were very concerned aboutthis tree, that it wouldn't work
and that it wouldn't work overtime.
The juvenile trees, the treesthat were three years old,
(12:42):
appeared to have the blightresistance trait, appeared to be
doing just fine, and then, allof a sudden, a few years later,
when they're seven years oldwhich is, you know, in the
lifespan of a chestnut tree isstill not very much they started
dying and nobody understood why.
And if you look at theconversations between the people
(13:03):
in the American ChestnutFoundation, you hear them
talking about how this was alearning experience and they
didn't have the science and theydidn't have the technology to
know what was going on.
They don't have any idea whatthey're doing, and yet their
idea is that they're going tomake these trees and release
them into wild forests wherethey can never be recovered.
So that's why we're workingagainst the release of this and
(13:28):
all genetically engineered treesinto the environment.
Steve Taylor (13:31):
Well, it was a stunner.
I think it was December 8th oflast year.
The American ChestnutFoundation said it was
withdrawing a support because ofthe poor performance of the
Darling line.
Also, some errors, some basic,fundamental errors.
After many, many years ofpromoting it I think it had more
promotion than cold fusion,talking about releasing
(13:52):
something into the wild.
I want to ask Dr Davis.
Dr Davis, in your book theAmerican Chestnut and
Environmental History, youcalled the Darling 58 a
dangerous and irreversibleexperiment.
Could you elaborate on that?
Dr. Donald Davis (14:08):
Yes, that was the section in the book towards
the end of the book where I waslooking at some of the concerns
and issues and problemspotential problems with
releasing a GE American Chestnutinto the wild and at one time I
had actually worked for theCenter for Food Safety, an
(14:30):
organization that also does alot of work trying to monitor
what's going on with GE foodproducts, so on and so forth.
Even earlier, I even workedwith Jeremy Rifkin, who's one of
the founders of anti-GMOlegislation and organizational
(14:52):
movements In any event.
So I was aware, I've been awareof the potential problems of GE
trees and I knew this was justkind of a bad idea.
In the book I discuss some ofthe issues, including, as Ann
just mentioned, this idea thatin order to really see how a GE
tree is going to perform, youhave to monitor it for many,
(15:14):
many years.
You need to look at how it'sgoing to perform 10 years down
the road, 20 years down the road, even 30 or 40 years down the
road.
In fact, a few years ago Ifound the famous Joyce Kilmer
American Chestnut trees.
It's five huge, large AmericanChestnut trees that were
(15:34):
photographed in 1909.
The logs of those trees, eventhough they've been dead for
almost a century.
They're still there in theforest in Joyce Kilmer Forest.
That means when you think aboutthe long-term consequences of
genetically modifying a tree,you have to look at how is it
going to impact the forest 10years down the road, 20 years
(15:56):
down the road or possiblycenturies down the road?
When I made my comments to thedraft environmental impact
statement that was released lastyear I think it was on my
birthday, november 10th I saidjust that that I was really
concerned about no one doing anyreally scientific tests on how
(16:18):
these trees were going to behaveand perform in the forest.
For 20 years I taught in theuniversity system of Georgia.
Every semester I did electionon the scientific method.
To do true science you have tohave validity and reliability.
Clearly, these experiments thatwere done on the Darling 58
(16:39):
trees were not reliable and notvalid because they weren't
reliable.
If the American ChestnutFoundation says they're doing
science when they promote therelease of the trees, they're
not, because to really doscience you need to look at the
impact of these experiments overthe long, long, long term.
Steve Taylor (17:00):
I believe Dr Cisco , who was an academic and
scientist affiliated with theAmerican Chestnut Foundation,
previously had stated he thoughtthat this type of tree should
have to be studied 50 yearsbefore put into the wild.
Am I correct in rememberingthat?
Dr. Donald Davis (17:21):
Yes, he wrote an email to me, actually wrote
an email to William Powell,which was then shared by the
American Chestnut Foundation.
In that email he said just thatthat you would need to look at
the impact of these trees 50years down the road or to study
them 50 years down the road.
(17:41):
I think the recent ChestnutChat that was done one month ago
by the American ChestnutFoundation after they withdrew
their support of the Darling 58trees.
One of the American Chestnutpartners I think his name is Jim
McKenna.
He said that we're going tohave to look at GE trees 15, 20
(18:08):
years down the road.
In other words, if the AmericanChestnut Foundation does
develop a GE tree, it's going totake them 15 or more years
before they can decide torelease it into the wild.
Of course I think that's tooshort of a time span, but now
they're beginning to sort of saywhat we were saying months ago
(18:28):
about the potential problem ofthe Darling 58 tree.
Steve Taylor (18:32):
It's stunning how closely the criticisms and
concerns of the AmericanChestnut Foundation, which was a
major supporter of this project, mirrors the concerns of those
who opposed it the scientists,citizens and organizations that
opposed it.
I mean they were turning onthis portion of the plant's
(18:57):
genome which was supposed to bekind of an antacid sort of
reaction to the blight, but thisactually dwarfed the growth, or
appears to have dwarfed thegrowth rates.
It's just not working.
It's just not working.
And what's surprising aboutthis?
If there wasn't such oppositionto the permit, to the USDA and
(19:22):
the citizens and scientists andorganizations mounting this
opposition, the tree may havealready been deregulated and
introduced into the wild.
And if it weren't for thesepeople that they like to
characterize as Luddite oranti-science, their scientific
(19:43):
experiment, their failure, it'sa failure.
The Darling 58 is a failure,according to the American
Chestnut Foundation.
I know that SUNY is still inthe camp of the Darling 58, but
I think they're there bythemselves.
It would have been released inno way of returning that.
So do either of you have anycomments regarding that?
Anne Petermann (20:04):
Sure, yeah, I mean exactly the American
Chestnut Foundation, which isnow saying that the release of
this genetically engineered treeinto forests could cause some
problems.
When they originally found outthat the tree had these fatal
flaws, their first reaction wasnot so much Not so much that the
(20:27):
tree could have been out in thewild causing wreaking havoc,
but rather that and here's aquote from their chief
conservation officer thatpremature distribution of this
or other inferior varieties mayalso unfairly skew public
perception against biotechnologysolutions to save threatened
forest tree species.
(20:48):
So it's less about that thistree could have gotten out of
control and caused havoc withthe remaining wild chestnut
populations, and more about thefact that they still believe,
even after this terribleexperience.
They still believe that thegenetically engineered tree is
the way to go and that not thisparticular genetically
(21:10):
engineered tree, but differentstrains of genetically
engineered trees, using CRISPRor gene editing or any of these
other newer technologies, couldbe the way to restore the
genetically engineered Americanchestnut to forests.
So it's not that they'velearned a lesson from this
disaster, this near disaster,it's that they've learned that
(21:33):
they need to try somethingdifferent and that the D58
didn't work, so they need to goin a different direction with
their genetic engineering, whichis unfortunate, you know.
It would have been nice if theyhad said hey, you know, this
technology is really toorevolutionary, too radical.
We don't know what it's goingto do, so let's step back from
it.
But that's not what's happened.
Steve Taylor (21:53):
SUNY is still pursuing its application for
deregulation.
If that happens, couldn't thisvariant adversely impact
naturally blight resistant trees, or how would it possibly
impact the trees that arealready out there?
Dr. Donald Davis (22:11):
Yes, I mean ESF SUNY had suggested that if
the trees are deregulated theywant to plant as many as 10,000
trees a year.
So you're talking about, over acourse of two or three years,
30 or 40,000 of these GE treesplanted in a wild forest.
(22:31):
These trees, as we now know,will have the blight, their
offspring will have the blight,so there's just going to be more
blight vectors in the forestand so if there are any sort of
remaining naturally kind ofblight resistant American
chestnuts, they're going tocontaminate those trees and
(22:52):
that's to me a plant past risk.
I mean I don't see how AFIS canreally condone the Darling 58
tree, because it does look likethey could have a detrimental
impact not only on wild Americanchestnuts but also wild
American chestnuts grown inorchard settings.
There's quite a few Chestnutorchards out there these days
(23:14):
where the chestnuts are growncommercially, so they could even
impact those.
And of course no one could everhave organic chestnut status.
If your trees have GEcontamination, you cannot
classify your trees as beingorganic.
So I spoke about this in mycomments regarding the AFIS
(23:38):
petition and I really hope thatthey do reconsider, because in
the draft it looked as thoughthey were going to deregulate
the tree.
So I hope, with all this newevidence now, they're going to
change their mind.
They're going to not allowthese trees to be released into
the wild.
It's a very bad idea.
Steve Taylor (23:59):
Why do you think SUNY is just holding on now with
this application, even thoughthe Darling 58, as demonstrated
by the American ChestnutFoundation's own reports and
studies, is deficient, why arethey pursuing this?
Anne Petermann (24:18):
Well listen.
Suny, esf, the College ofEnvironmental Science and
Forestry, built a lot of theirreputation around their work on
the genetically engineeredAmerican chestnut.
They received millions uponmillions of dollars for this
research.
They've got an entire newfacility that's dedicated to
addressing forest health crisesthrough biotechnology solutions.
(24:43):
Quote unquote the GE chestnutis just the beginning.
They want to do this with ashtrees.
They want to do this with allthe different trees that are
suffering from introduced pestand pathogens.
So they have a lot at stakehere, riding on the D58.
And if they get that D58approved by the USDA, then they
(25:06):
don't have to worry aboutgetting other future lines of
the Darling,genetically-engineered American
Chestnuts deregulated becausethey'll be exempt from
regulation under the current,under the old rules.
Actually, under the new rules,they basically don't need to be
regulated at all.
That's another whole line ofproblems.
(25:27):
But yeah, the regulatorysystems are kind of a joke.
But anyway, if they can get theD58 deregulated, then any
future Darling trees could sailthrough and be put into the
forest without any consultationwith the USDA or the public.
Steve Taylor (25:44):
Dr Davis, do you have an opinion as to why they
are just so staunchly standingbehind this tree, which has been
widely panned by chestnutexperts?
Dr. Donald Davis (25:59):
Well, I think Ann said it better than I could.
They've invested so much in thetree, they've done so much
propaganda promoting the treeand they really want this thing
to work in their mind.
What's curious to me and I stillhaven't quite figured it out
(26:20):
because I've been watching thesechestnut chats that the
American Chestnut Foundationhave done since their
announcement of abandoning theDarling 58 tree they keep saying
that there was a mix-up andthat the trees that they were
testing and observing in thefield were actually Darling 54
(26:40):
trees.
But then they're saying thatthat all the Darling line should
be abandoned, or at least theAmerican Chestnut Foundation
want to no longer support thoselines.
But if it really was, if thetrees that didn't behave
properly in these field testswere truly Darling 54 trees and
(27:03):
not Darling 58, why would theythen say that?
So it's very confusing to mewhy they even used that argument
or even brought up the issuethat the problem was not the
Darling 58 trees per se butthese Darling 54 trees.
Very strange sort of stance andone that I'm still not sure why
(27:27):
they even brought that issue up.
Maybe Anne has some thoughts onthat.
Anne Petermann (27:31):
Well, what's interesting is how is watching
the progression, the evolutionof their thinking around the
Darling lines of thesegenetically engineered American
Chestnuts.
And it was in September intheir Chestnut chat that they
revealed that there wereproblems.
They didn't understand them,but there were problems, and so
they were trying to figure thatout.
And then later they announcedthat there had been a mistake,
(27:52):
that SUNY ESF had given to theAmerican Chestnut Foundation the
wrong GE tree material.
They hadn't gotten the D58sthat they thought they were
getting.
They got these D54s which hadthe gene on the wrong chromosome
.
That's a lot of minutiae, butthe real issue is they really
didn't know what was going onand it's over time that they've
(28:15):
figured out.
Wait.
Okay, so the D54 didn't work,but actually it was the
constituent promoter in theDarling line that's causing the
problems, because it's thistrait in the genetically
engineered tree, this blightresistance trait, that is never
turned off.
So the tree is alwaysexpressing every part of the
tree is always expressing thisblight resistance trait which is
(28:37):
causing the tree to havetremendous they call it, looking
at the tree as if it has alittle fever.
It's causing the tree to put alot of its metabolic energy into
this blight resistance when itdoesn't need it.
So therefore it can't competein a forest ecosystem because it
doesn't have the vigorousgrowth and so on.
(28:58):
Even if it's not having all ofthe problems of the D54, where
it's just dying of the blightand so forth, it's still just
not a good tree for restorationpurposes, is the way that they
put it.
So it's really been interestingto see that they really don't
know what the heck they're doing.
From September through Decemberand then on.
(29:19):
Since then they just keeprevealing all of these new
things that they're learning,because they really have no idea
what's going on when they'regenetically engineering these
trees.
And that's been a real wake upcall to us as people concerned
about genetically engineeringtrees, is that the researchers
themselves don't really knowwhat they're doing.
Steve Taylor (29:38):
Yeah, that's an interesting point because from
my understanding and Iinterviewed some individuals at
the American Chestnut FoundationPublic Relations Officer and
Conservation Officer and theydid not learn of this error
(29:59):
themselves.
They didn't discover itthemselves, nor did they learn
it from SUNY ESF.
They learned it from a thirdparty and I think let's just
characterize their position onthis as being a bit vexed by
that.
That's all I'm gonna say onthat.
But it does really underscorehow these are Human beings.
(30:25):
There are people doingconservation work, they're
scientists, but they are humanbeings and I've always felt this
hard push for the Darling 58before all the evidence was in,
was a bit careerist, was a bitopportunistic, was a bit of a
propaganda for GE that they werepicking an iconic tree to
(30:45):
promote the use of GE andconservation, to sort of tweak
the regulatory process to makethe next approval that much
easier.
Then you mentioned, dr Powell,that you, dr Davis, that you had
actually sent an email to DrPowell.
He was, I think, the leadresearcher who tragically died
(31:08):
of cancer shortly before thiserror was discovered and I
almost thought that maybe therewas some push to have this
approved before his illness tookhim.
Any thoughts on that, dr Davisabout careerism, about this push
and how it comports with doingactual science.
Dr. Donald Davis (31:29):
Well, as I mentioned earlier, true science
needs reliability and validity,and most of the experiments
involving GE trees have beendone on trees that are very
young.
They're like one time studies,what I call like one-off studies
.
Okay, we're gonna measure theoxides levels in pollen.
(31:53):
So they look at a pollen sampleand measure them and say, oh,
they look pretty low to me,without thinking about the
accumulative effects that theoxalic oxidase enzyme might have
on the ecosystem.
They put some oxalic oxidase onthe mycelium of mushrooms and
(32:15):
said, oh, we're now three monthslater.
We looked at the mycelium andwe don't see extraordinary
levels.
But again, if you were to lookat the accumulative effects of
the oxalic oxidase in the forestover many, many years, you
might get a different result.
So yeah, I think that if peopleare trying to promote the
organization they're trying topromote their career, they
(32:37):
really need to show that they'regetting results quickly and
within the next funding cycle.
So I think there's a lot ofthose kind of pressures going on
with these guys.
But I wish more folks had readmy book, because when you read
my book you find out that peoplehave been fighting this fungus
(32:57):
crafter, nectar of fungus nowfor well more than a century and
no one's beat it yet and it'sgonna be very difficult to beat
that fungus.
It's a difficult battle and forthese people who claim, oh, I
have the magic bullet, you haveto be a little bit skeptical.
(33:19):
When people claim that they'vesolved them the fungus problem,
that doesn't mean that, you know, eventually we can have just
not trees back in the forest.
But even so, as I sort of endedmy book, I talk about this idea
that even if we came up with amagic bullet, it's gonna take at
least a millennium you know, 10centuries before the trees have
(33:43):
actually reestablishedthemselves in the eastern
deciduous forests.
So people need to startthinking more long term and stop
thinking about these, you know,quick fixes, short term kind of
solutions to the plight problem, at least I think.
If they do, then they'll have amuch more realistic and kind of
(34:05):
a sane approach to chestnutrestoration.
Steve Taylor (34:09):
And there's really no holes in the forest where
the chestnuts left.
The forests themselves havesort of moved on in a way to oak
hickory and the whole soilcomposition and everything is a
bit different.
Dr. Donald Davis (34:21):
Yeah, sure, there's lots happened in the
forest, and to just simply, youknow, think that you can plant
some chestnut trees and they'regoing to reestablish themselves
is again sort of looking at theproblem much too optimistically,
I think, than what the realityis.
Steve Taylor (34:40):
And they've always said it was just one gene.
Is they so much underplayed thesignificance of that?
It's just one gene, but thenwhy do you have all these
variants?
And obviously there's more toit than just that, you know,
throwing a gene at a tree orjust inserting it like a nail.
I mean there's a lot more.
I think they over simplified itand played the we are the
(35:01):
scientist hand, and now we'reseeing that, I mean, they were
the scientists, but they wereresearching the wrong tree for I
don't know how many years, manyyears before they found out
that they were doing fieldtrials on the wrong tree.
You know, mistakes do happen,right, but there seems to be a
(35:22):
bit of hubris where they're justnot backing off.
So, anne, what do people do ifthey are concerned about the
current petition to deregulatethe Darling 58?
Anne Petermann (35:35):
Sure.
Let me just get back one secondto what you just were saying,
though, about the whole one gene, one trait argument that was
put out in such, you know, somany different times and so many
different ways and, you know,got picked up by the New York
Times and the Wall StreetJournal and the Washington Post
and National Geographic, andblah, blah, blah all of these,
(35:56):
all of these major outlets thatwere promoting this, this big
lie, if you will.
You know, and how simple thisthing was.
It was going to just one genefrom wheat was going to we eat
wheat all the time and you knowthis is going to save the
American chestnut, this iconicmajestic tree.
But the reality is that it'sabout the genetic engineering
(36:18):
process, whether it's CRISPR orgene editing or transgenics.
It's really about the fact thatyou are messing around with,
you know, dna and you'resnipping it apart, or you're
adding things that have neverbeen in there before.
You're doing things to genesthat have not, that aren't
natural, and because of that,you don't know what's going to
(36:40):
happen.
Dr Ricardo Steinbrecher has areport that she's put out, that
she's revising right now, aboutthe risks of genetically
engineered trees and how youreally can't know because of the
mutations that happen insidethe genome when you do this kind
of genetic engineering theunpredictable impacts, the gene
silencing when the gene isturned off, for nobody knows
(37:03):
exactly why all of thesedifferent things, that it's not
just about the fact that thisone genetically engineered tree
didn't work out the way theythought or they got the wrong
genetically engineered treematerial in the first place.
It's the whole package.
You cannot geneticallyengineered trees and pretend to
understand what's going tohappen just to the tree, not to
(37:25):
mention the entire forestecosystem.
So, yeah, it's really importantthat people get involved in this
and make a big deal to get theUSDA to stop, to stop this
petition, in particular, the D58petition that is still pending,
that they could still approvethis faulty, damaged tree, which
(37:49):
is important to make thatprecedent, but it's also
important to stop future linesof all genetically engineered
trees, and so I would encouragepeople to go to the website for
the campaign, which isstopgetreesorg, and there's a
take action button there andthat will have the latest action
alerts that people can endorseto either send a letter, an
(38:13):
email to SUNY ESF asking them towithdraw the petition to the
USDA, or you can sign on to aletter to the USDA asking them
to reject this petition.
There's many different waysthat you can get involved, so I
encourage people to go tostopgetreesorg and find the take
(38:34):
action button.
That's the easiest thing thatpeople can do.
Steve Taylor (38:37):
Dr Davis, you said you wish more people had read
your book.
It's a great book.
I have read it.
I did an interview with youabout it.
Would you say a few words aboutyour book, the title, who
published it and where to findit?
Dr. Donald Davis (38:51):
Yes, the book was published by the University
of Georgia Press in November of2021.
But because of COVID, there wasa whole lot of promotion of the
book early on, although I didgive a lecture about the book at
the Forest History Society atDuke University.
That was well received.
The book covers basically10,000 years of American
(39:15):
chestnut history, starting withthe first Native Americans that
encountered the trees during thesort of late paleo period.
It goes all the way into the1950s and 1960s when you saw the
very last living large grows ofAmerican chestnut trees,
(39:38):
primarily in the SouthernAppalachians.
I talk about the importance ofthe trees on America's culture,
on the language, on the buildingtechniques, construction.
The Choctaw Indians evenconsidered the chestnut the
first living thing brought forthby the Creator.
(40:00):
There were all kinds ofinteresting anecdotes coming
from Native American cultureregarding the American chestnut.
Many Native American groupsconsidered the month of November
the chestnut month.
They even had a month namedafter the American chestnut.
The book is a history, but I dospend a concluding chapter
(40:28):
looking at the issue ofgenetically modified trees and
the possible impact that theycould have on the forest.
I'm also interested in how weapply all this history to the
real world and real worldproblems.
Steve Taylor (40:45):
Where does one find that book?
Dr. Donald Davis (40:47):
It's available on all the usual websites.
University of Georgia has theirown website, so probably if you
went to them, it would supporta non-profit more than the other
sites.
Of course, your local libraryhas a copy, so you don't have to
purchase it, you can just go tothe public library.
In fact, I did a recentWorldCat search and WorldCat
(41:10):
claims that the book is nowfound in almost 900 libraries
worldwide.
Steve Taylor (41:15):
It's a great book the American Chestnut An
Environmental History by DrDonald Davis.
Check it out.
Dr Donald Davis and Peter Min,thank you for joining us on
Breaking Green.
Dr. Donald Davis (41:29):
Thank you, steve, I really thank you for
having me on and I reallyenjoyed my time with you and Ann
.
Steve Taylor (41:37):
You have been listening to Breaking Green a
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To learn more about GlobalJustice Ecology Project, visit
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Breaking Green is made possibleby tax-deductible donations by
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(41:57):
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That's 1-716-257-4187.
Welcome to Breaking Green, a podcast by
Global Justice Ecology Project.
On Breaking Green.
We will talk with activists andexperts to examine the
intertwined issues of social,ecological and economic
injustice.
We will also explore some ofthe more outrageous proposals to
address climate andenvironmental crises that are
(00:22):
falsely being sold as green.
I am your host, steve Taylor.
The American ChestnutFoundation has long supported a
controversial plan to releasegenetically engineered chestnut
trees into the wild.
The tree was being developed bythe State University of New
York College of EnvironmentalScience and Forestry, also known
as SUNY ESF, but now poorperformance and field trials
(00:46):
prompted the American ChestnutFoundation to pull its support
for the GE tree.
The American ChestnutFoundation has also called for
SUNY ESF to pull its applicationbefore the United States
Department of Agriculture forderegulation of the tree.
On this episode of BreakingGreen, we will talk with Ann
Peterman and Dr Donald Davis.
(01:07):
Ann Peterman co-founded GlobalJustice Ecology Project in 2003.
She is the internationalcoordinator of the campaign to
stop GE trees, which she alsoco-founded.
Peterman is also a foundingboard member of the Will Miller
Social Justice Lecture Series.
Peterman has been involved inmovements for forest protection
(01:27):
and indigenous rights since 1991and the international and
national climate justicemovement since 2004.
Ann Peterman was adopted as anhonorary member of the St
Francis-Sikoki Band of theAbinacke in 1992 for her work in
support of their struggle forstate recognition.
In 2000, she received the WildNature Award for activist of the
(01:50):
year.
We will also talk with Dr DonaldDavis, author of the American
Chestnut and EnvironmentalHistory.
His exhaustive book exploreshow the American Chestnut tree
has shaped history, as well asthe cultural and environmental
significance of the onceubiquitous tree.
Davis is an independent scholar, author and former full bright
fellow.
He has authored or edited sevenbooks.
(02:13):
His book when there AreMountains and Environmental
History of the SouthernAppalachians won the prestigious
Philip D Reed EnvironmentalWriting Award.
Davis was also the foundingmember of the Georgia Chapter of
the American ChestnutFoundation, serving as its
president from 2005 to 2006.
He is currently employed by theHarvard Forest as a research
(02:35):
scholar and lives in WashingtonDC.
Ann Peterman, dr Donald Davis,welcome to Breaking Green.
Both of you have been guestsbefore on Breaking Green.
Dr Davis, you were on anepisode about the environmental
history of the American Chestnuttree and you have been on
(02:56):
several times, including anepisode on genetically
engineered trees.
This episode is about recentdevelopments on attempts to
deregulate a geneticallyengineered American Chestnut
tree.
So, Ann, could we please startoff with you?
Could you explain briefly whatis a Darling 58 genetically
engineered American Chestnuttree, what is it and who is
(03:19):
behind it?
Anne Petermann (03:21):
Sure, the Darling 58 genetically
engineered American Chestnuttree is an experimental
genetically engineered tree.
That is a tree that has beenworked on for quite a few years
at the State University of NewYork's College of Environmental
Science and Forestry up inSyracuse and it's gone through a
(03:43):
lot of iterations thegenetically engineered tree
American Chestnut tree untilthey finally came up with one
called the Darling 58.
It's obviously the 58th versionof a series of Darling
genetically engineered trees andthey're designed to be blight
tolerant.
So in the early part of the1900s many of the American
(04:06):
Chestnut trees growing up anddown the East Coast were
eradicated by a blight that wasintroduced from Asia.
And this is supposedly anattempt to bring the American
Chestnut back into the forest bymaking it blight tolerant by
using a gene from wheat, an OXOgene from wheat that is
(04:27):
resistant to that, that is,fungal resistance, has fungal
resistance and supposedly thiswas going to give the American
Chestnut tree blight tolerance.
So that was the idea behind itand ESF, the College of
Environmental Science andForestry, was pushing it really
hard with a lot of support fromindustry.
(04:50):
Actually, you know, fromdifferent timber industries had
come up with the idea quite afew years ago, decades ago
actually.
And then they also hadtechnical and financial support
from Arborgen, from Monsanto,from Duke Energy.
So it wasn't really all thataltruistic, but the American
Chestnut Foundation decided toget behind it because they also
(05:13):
thought genetic engineeringwould be a good way to bring
back the American Chestnut treefrom this blight that had done
such damage to its population.
Steve Taylor (05:22):
Dr Donald Davis, could you give us a quick
summary of what happened to theAmerican Chestnut?
Why is it considered afunctionally extinct tree?
Dr. Donald Davis (05:31):
Yeah, sure.
So up until the late 1800s theAmerican Chestnut was one of the
more common trees in theeastern United States, Although
my environmental history showedthat it probably wasn't as
common in certain parts of theeastern US than people had
thought.
But it certainly was.
You know, a ubiquitous tree.
(05:52):
It was most common in what theyused to call the Chestnut Belt,
which is kind of the southernAppalachian region, and as you
go towards New England it becameless and less common.
But it was a tree that had manyuses.
Not only could you eat the nutsbut you could make all kinds of
wooden products from the wood.
(06:12):
It was used for fodder.
The young tree shoots could befed to cattle, for example, or
even sheep.
So I had lots of uses.
It was very popular among people, especially in rural areas.
People, individuals always liketo have Chestnut trees growing
(06:35):
on their property, and in thelate 1800s they started
importing Japanese Chestnuts tosome of the largest nurseries in
the New York City region,including New Jersey, and those
Chestnuts, those JapaneseChestnuts that originated around
(06:56):
Tokyo, had the blight on themand the blight eventually leaves
the Japanese Chestnuts, startsspreading into the American you
know ecosystem and by 1904, ithad been detected there at the
Bronx Zoo and kind of.
(07:16):
The rest is history.
The blight spread rapidly,quickly and by 1950, you really
could consider the Americanchestnut functionally extinct,
meaning that most of the treesdid not reproduce, Although
today we're finding that to evenkind of be a misnomer because
(07:37):
we're finding more and moretrees in the wild that actually
are blooming and reproducing.
Steve Taylor (07:41):
So you're saying that the American chestnut is
surviving a bit more thansometimes reported in the
natural world?
Dr. Donald Davis (07:52):
Yes, some of the Forest Service Inventory
show there's many as two millionblooming chestnut trees in the
eastern forest today, and byblooming that means they're
blooming size.
So they're anywhere from, youknow, two inches in diameter to
eight or 10 inches in diameter.
So there's a lot of them outthere.
They tend to die after theybloom once or twice, so you
(08:16):
don't necessarily find lots ofreproduction, although we're
seeing some of that now in thenorthern states.
Maine, for example, has awonderful grove of chestnut
trees.
More than a thousandindividuals are surviving there
in southern Maine on the farm ofBurnt Heinrich, and of course
(08:38):
he got his trees from Michiganand there's several stands in
Michigan that are doing well andgrowing and reproducing as well
.
Steve Taylor (08:48):
So you are the author of an American Chestnut,
an environmental history, a bookwhich is comprehensive.
I recommend it to our listeners.
But you are also a foundingmember of the Georgia chapter of
the American ChestnutFoundation, so you are a fan of
the tree.
It's clear when you read yourhistory.
(09:08):
You talk about the cultural andhistorical significance of the
tree, but you were critical, orare critical, about attempts to
produce a genetically engineeredvariant.
Dr. Donald Davis (09:25):
That's right and you could say I've parted
ways with the American ChestnutFoundation once they started
putting so much emphasis andfocusing on the GE trees.
I thought that was a bad idea.
I had fairly long discussionswith a former CEO of the
American Chestnut Foundationabout this.
(09:46):
In fact, I was also thegovernmental affairs
representative to the AmericanChestnut Foundation for several
years when I lived here inWashington DC.
I would go on the hill and dosome lobbying on their behalf,
but again once I saw they wereputting so much emphasis on the
GE trees, I said I can't reallyendorse this and started
(10:10):
promoting more what they'redoing at the American Chestnut
Cooperators Foundation, which isusing pure American trees and
trying to breed trees that areresistant to the bite, and
they've been somewhat successfulat that.
Steve Taylor (10:26):
Right, you mentioned the trees of Dr
Heinrich's property and also theAmerican Chestnut Cooperators
Foundation, I believe, has comeout against the genetically
engineered variant.
Ann Piederman, why is thecampaign to stop GE trees
opposed to the Darling 58?
Anne Petermann (10:43):
Thanks, steve.
Yeah, well, the campaign tostop genetically engineered
trees, as implied by our name,is very concerned about the idea
of genetically engineeringtrees, and when we learned about
the genetically engineeredAmerican Chestnut tree, or the
work to produce geneticallyengineered American Chestnut
trees, which was back in about2011 or so, this was something
(11:07):
that was very concerning, notjust because of the genetically
and genetic engineering of thetree itself, but because the
plans were, once it wasgenetically engineered, to
release it into the forestswhere it was designed, to spread
its pollen and seeds andcontaminate the remaining
populations of wild AmericanChestnuts, which Dr Davis just
(11:30):
mentioned.
There are more than 2 millionthat are actively flowering and
producing chestnuts.
So the idea that they wanted tocreate these genetically
engineered trees and thenrelease them to spread
irreversibly and uncontrollably,without regulation of any kind,
was terribly concerning to us,and so we waged a campaign for
(11:56):
jeez, I guess it's been over adecade now to make sure that
these trees are not releasedinto the environment.
So when it all of a sudden, onDecember 8th, the American
Chestnut Foundation announcedthat the trees were not doing
what they had expected them todo and they were now saying that
they should not be approved bythe USDA for release into wild
(12:19):
forests.
We were quite surprised by it,but we were not surprised that
the trees didn't work.
We work with a lot of differentscientists in different areas
who were very concerned aboutthis tree, that it wouldn't work
and that it wouldn't work overtime.
The juvenile trees, the treesthat were three years old,
(12:42):
appeared to have the blightresistance trait, appeared to be
doing just fine, and then, allof a sudden, a few years later,
when they're seven years oldwhich is, you know, in the
lifespan of a chestnut tree isstill not very much they started
dying and nobody understood why.
And if you look at theconversations between the people
(13:03):
in the American ChestnutFoundation, you hear them
talking about how this was alearning experience and they
didn't have the science and theydidn't have the technology to
know what was going on.
They don't have any idea whatthey're doing, and yet their
idea is that they're going tomake these trees and release
them into wild forests wherethey can never be recovered.
So that's why we're workingagainst the release of this and
(13:28):
all genetically engineered treesinto the environment.
Steve Taylor (13:31):
Well, it was a stunner.
I think it was December 8th oflast year.
The American ChestnutFoundation said it was
withdrawing a support because ofthe poor performance of the
Darling line.
Also, some errors, some basic,fundamental errors.
After many, many years ofpromoting it I think it had more
promotion than cold fusion,talking about releasing
(13:52):
something into the wild.
I want to ask Dr Davis.
Dr Davis, in your book theAmerican Chestnut and
Environmental History, youcalled the Darling 58 a
dangerous and irreversibleexperiment.
Could you elaborate on that?
Dr. Donald Davis (14:08):
Yes, that was the section in the book towards
the end of the book where I waslooking at some of the concerns
and issues and problemspotential problems with
releasing a GE American Chestnutinto the wild and at one time I
had actually worked for theCenter for Food Safety, an
(14:30):
organization that also does alot of work trying to monitor
what's going on with GE foodproducts, so on and so forth.
Even earlier, I even workedwith Jeremy Rifkin, who's one of
the founders of anti-GMOlegislation and organizational
(14:52):
movements In any event.
So I was aware, I've been awareof the potential problems of GE
trees and I knew this was justkind of a bad idea.
In the book I discuss some ofthe issues, including, as Ann
just mentioned, this idea thatin order to really see how a GE
tree is going to perform, youhave to monitor it for many,
(15:14):
many years.
You need to look at how it'sgoing to perform 10 years down
the road, 20 years down the road, even 30 or 40 years down the
road.
In fact, a few years ago Ifound the famous Joyce Kilmer
American Chestnut trees.
It's five huge, large AmericanChestnut trees that were
(15:34):
photographed in 1909.
The logs of those trees, eventhough they've been dead for
almost a century.
They're still there in theforest in Joyce Kilmer Forest.
That means when you think aboutthe long-term consequences of
genetically modifying a tree,you have to look at how is it
going to impact the forest 10years down the road, 20 years
(15:56):
down the road or possiblycenturies down the road?
When I made my comments to thedraft environmental impact
statement that was released lastyear I think it was on my
birthday, november 10th I saidjust that that I was really
concerned about no one doing anyreally scientific tests on how
(16:18):
these trees were going to behaveand perform in the forest.
For 20 years I taught in theuniversity system of Georgia.
Every semester I did electionon the scientific method.
To do true science you have tohave validity and reliability.
Clearly, these experiments thatwere done on the Darling 58
(16:39):
trees were not reliable and notvalid because they weren't
reliable.
If the American ChestnutFoundation says they're doing
science when they promote therelease of the trees, they're
not, because to really doscience you need to look at the
impact of these experiments overthe long, long, long term.
Steve Taylor (17:00):
I believe Dr Cisco , who was an academic and
scientist affiliated with theAmerican Chestnut Foundation,
previously had stated he thoughtthat this type of tree should
have to be studied 50 yearsbefore put into the wild.
Am I correct in rememberingthat?
Dr. Donald Davis (17:21):
Yes, he wrote an email to me, actually wrote
an email to William Powell,which was then shared by the
American Chestnut Foundation.
In that email he said just thatthat you would need to look at
the impact of these trees 50years down the road or to study
them 50 years down the road.
(17:41):
I think the recent ChestnutChat that was done one month ago
by the American ChestnutFoundation after they withdrew
their support of the Darling 58trees.
One of the American Chestnutpartners I think his name is Jim
McKenna.
He said that we're going tohave to look at GE trees 15, 20
(18:08):
years down the road.
In other words, if the AmericanChestnut Foundation does
develop a GE tree, it's going totake them 15 or more years
before they can decide torelease it into the wild.
Of course I think that's tooshort of a time span, but now
they're beginning to sort of saywhat we were saying months ago
(18:28):
about the potential problem ofthe Darling 58 tree.
Steve Taylor (18:32):
It's stunning how closely the criticisms and
concerns of the AmericanChestnut Foundation, which was a
major supporter of this project, mirrors the concerns of those
who opposed it the scientists,citizens and organizations that
opposed it.
I mean they were turning onthis portion of the plant's
(18:57):
genome which was supposed to bekind of an antacid sort of
reaction to the blight, but thisactually dwarfed the growth, or
appears to have dwarfed thegrowth rates.
It's just not working.
It's just not working.
And what's surprising aboutthis?
If there wasn't such oppositionto the permit, to the USDA and
(19:22):
the citizens and scientists andorganizations mounting this
opposition, the tree may havealready been deregulated and
introduced into the wild.
And if it weren't for thesepeople that they like to
characterize as Luddite oranti-science, their scientific
(19:43):
experiment, their failure, it'sa failure.
The Darling 58 is a failure,according to the American
Chestnut Foundation.
I know that SUNY is still inthe camp of the Darling 58, but
I think they're there bythemselves.
It would have been released inno way of returning that.
So do either of you have anycomments regarding that?
Anne Petermann (20:04):
Sure, yeah, I mean exactly the American
Chestnut Foundation, which isnow saying that the release of
this genetically engineered treeinto forests could cause some
problems.
When they originally found outthat the tree had these fatal
flaws, their first reaction wasnot so much Not so much that the
(20:27):
tree could have been out in thewild causing wreaking havoc,
but rather that and here's aquote from their chief
conservation officer thatpremature distribution of this
or other inferior varieties mayalso unfairly skew public
perception against biotechnologysolutions to save threatened
forest tree species.
(20:48):
So it's less about that thistree could have gotten out of
control and caused havoc withthe remaining wild chestnut
populations, and more about thefact that they still believe,
even after this terribleexperience.
They still believe that thegenetically engineered tree is
the way to go and that not thisparticular genetically
(21:10):
engineered tree, but differentstrains of genetically
engineered trees, using CRISPRor gene editing or any of these
other newer technologies, couldbe the way to restore the
genetically engineered Americanchestnut to forests.
So it's not that they'velearned a lesson from this
disaster, this near disaster,it's that they've learned that
(21:33):
they need to try somethingdifferent and that the D58
didn't work, so they need to goin a different direction with
their genetic engineering, whichis unfortunate, you know.
It would have been nice if theyhad said hey, you know, this
technology is really toorevolutionary, too radical.
We don't know what it's goingto do, so let's step back from
it.
But that's not what's happened.
Steve Taylor (21:53):
SUNY is still pursuing its application for
deregulation.
If that happens, couldn't thisvariant adversely impact
naturally blight resistant trees, or how would it possibly
impact the trees that arealready out there?
Dr. Donald Davis (22:11):
Yes, I mean ESF SUNY had suggested that if
the trees are deregulated theywant to plant as many as 10,000
trees a year.
So you're talking about, over acourse of two or three years,
30 or 40,000 of these GE treesplanted in a wild forest.
(22:31):
These trees, as we now know,will have the blight, their
offspring will have the blight,so there's just going to be more
blight vectors in the forestand so if there are any sort of
remaining naturally kind ofblight resistant American
chestnuts, they're going tocontaminate those trees and
(22:52):
that's to me a plant past risk.
I mean I don't see how AFIS canreally condone the Darling 58
tree, because it does look likethey could have a detrimental
impact not only on wild Americanchestnuts but also wild
American chestnuts grown inorchard settings.
There's quite a few Chestnutorchards out there these days
(23:14):
where the chestnuts are growncommercially, so they could even
impact those.
And of course no one could everhave organic chestnut status.
If your trees have GEcontamination, you cannot
classify your trees as beingorganic.
So I spoke about this in mycomments regarding the AFIS
(23:38):
petition and I really hope thatthey do reconsider, because in
the draft it looked as thoughthey were going to deregulate
the tree.
So I hope, with all this newevidence now, they're going to
change their mind.
They're going to not allowthese trees to be released into
the wild.
It's a very bad idea.
Steve Taylor (23:59):
Why do you think SUNY is just holding on now with
this application, even thoughthe Darling 58, as demonstrated
by the American ChestnutFoundation's own reports and
studies, is deficient, why arethey pursuing this?
Anne Petermann (24:18):
Well listen.
Suny, esf, the College ofEnvironmental Science and
Forestry, built a lot of theirreputation around their work on
the genetically engineeredAmerican chestnut.
They received millions uponmillions of dollars for this
research.
They've got an entire newfacility that's dedicated to
addressing forest health crisesthrough biotechnology solutions.
(24:43):
Quote unquote the GE chestnutis just the beginning.
They want to do this with ashtrees.
They want to do this with allthe different trees that are
suffering from introduced pestand pathogens.
So they have a lot at stakehere, riding on the D58.
And if they get that D58approved by the USDA, then they
(25:06):
don't have to worry aboutgetting other future lines of
the Darling,genetically-engineered American
Chestnuts deregulated becausethey'll be exempt from
regulation under the current,under the old rules.
Actually, under the new rules,they basically don't need to be
regulated at all.
That's another whole line ofproblems.
(25:27):
But yeah, the regulatorysystems are kind of a joke.
But anyway, if they can get theD58 deregulated, then any
future Darling trees could sailthrough and be put into the
forest without any consultationwith the USDA or the public.
Steve Taylor (25:44):
Dr Davis, do you have an opinion as to why they
are just so staunchly standingbehind this tree, which has been
widely panned by chestnutexperts?
Dr. Donald Davis (25:59):
Well, I think Ann said it better than I could.
They've invested so much in thetree, they've done so much
propaganda promoting the treeand they really want this thing
to work in their mind.
What's curious to me and I stillhaven't quite figured it out
(26:20):
because I've been watching thesechestnut chats that the
American Chestnut Foundationhave done since their
announcement of abandoning theDarling 58 tree they keep saying
that there was a mix-up andthat the trees that they were
testing and observing in thefield were actually Darling 54
(26:40):
trees.
But then they're saying thatthat all the Darling line should
be abandoned, or at least theAmerican Chestnut Foundation
want to no longer support thoselines.
But if it really was, if thetrees that didn't behave
properly in these field testswere truly Darling 54 trees and
(27:03):
not Darling 58, why would theythen say that?
So it's very confusing to mewhy they even used that argument
or even brought up the issuethat the problem was not the
Darling 58 trees per se butthese Darling 54 trees.
Very strange sort of stance andone that I'm still not sure why
(27:27):
they even brought that issue up.
Maybe Anne has some thoughts onthat.
Anne Petermann (27:31):
Well, what's interesting is how is watching
the progression, the evolutionof their thinking around the
Darling lines of thesegenetically engineered American
Chestnuts.
And it was in September intheir Chestnut chat that they
revealed that there wereproblems.
They didn't understand them,but there were problems, and so
they were trying to figure thatout.
And then later they announcedthat there had been a mistake,
(27:52):
that SUNY ESF had given to theAmerican Chestnut Foundation the
wrong GE tree material.
They hadn't gotten the D58sthat they thought they were
getting.
They got these D54s which hadthe gene on the wrong chromosome
.
That's a lot of minutiae, butthe real issue is they really
didn't know what was going onand it's over time that they've
(28:15):
figured out.
Wait.
Okay, so the D54 didn't work,but actually it was the
constituent promoter in theDarling line that's causing the
problems, because it's thistrait in the genetically
engineered tree, this blightresistance trait, that is never
turned off.
So the tree is alwaysexpressing every part of the
tree is always expressing thisblight resistance trait which is
(28:37):
causing the tree to havetremendous they call it, looking
at the tree as if it has alittle fever.
It's causing the tree to put alot of its metabolic energy into
this blight resistance when itdoesn't need it.
So therefore it can't competein a forest ecosystem because it
doesn't have the vigorousgrowth and so on.
(28:58):
Even if it's not having all ofthe problems of the D54, where
it's just dying of the blightand so forth, it's still just
not a good tree for restorationpurposes, is the way that they
put it.
So it's really been interestingto see that they really don't
know what the heck they're doing.
From September through Decemberand then on.
(29:19):
Since then they just keeprevealing all of these new
things that they're learning,because they really have no idea
what's going on when they'regenetically engineering these
trees.
And that's been a real wake upcall to us as people concerned
about genetically engineeringtrees, is that the researchers
themselves don't really knowwhat they're doing.
Steve Taylor (29:38):
Yeah, that's an interesting point because from
my understanding and Iinterviewed some individuals at
the American Chestnut FoundationPublic Relations Officer and
Conservation Officer and theydid not learn of this error
(29:59):
themselves.
They didn't discover itthemselves, nor did they learn
it from SUNY ESF.
They learned it from a thirdparty and I think let's just
characterize their position onthis as being a bit vexed by
that.
That's all I'm gonna say onthat.
But it does really underscorehow these are Human beings.
(30:25):
There are people doingconservation work, they're
scientists, but they are humanbeings and I've always felt this
hard push for the Darling 58before all the evidence was in,
was a bit careerist, was a bitopportunistic, was a bit of a
propaganda for GE that they werepicking an iconic tree to
(30:45):
promote the use of GE andconservation, to sort of tweak
the regulatory process to makethe next approval that much
easier.
Then you mentioned, dr Powell,that you, dr Davis, that you had
actually sent an email to DrPowell.
He was, I think, the leadresearcher who tragically died
(31:08):
of cancer shortly before thiserror was discovered and I
almost thought that maybe therewas some push to have this
approved before his illness tookhim.
Any thoughts on that, dr Davisabout careerism, about this push
and how it comports with doingactual science.
Dr. Donald Davis (31:29):
Well, as I mentioned earlier, true science
needs reliability and validity,and most of the experiments
involving GE trees have beendone on trees that are very
young.
They're like one time studies,what I call like one-off studies
.
Okay, we're gonna measure theoxides levels in pollen.
(31:53):
So they look at a pollen sampleand measure them and say, oh,
they look pretty low to me,without thinking about the
accumulative effects that theoxalic oxidase enzyme might have
on the ecosystem.
They put some oxalic oxidase onthe mycelium of mushrooms and
(32:15):
said, oh, we're now three monthslater.
We looked at the mycelium andwe don't see extraordinary
levels.
But again, if you were to lookat the accumulative effects of
the oxalic oxidase in the forestover many, many years, you
might get a different result.
So yeah, I think that if peopleare trying to promote the
organization they're trying topromote their career, they
(32:37):
really need to show that they'regetting results quickly and
within the next funding cycle.
So I think there's a lot ofthose kind of pressures going on
with these guys.
But I wish more folks had readmy book, because when you read
my book you find out that peoplehave been fighting this fungus
(32:57):
crafter, nectar of fungus nowfor well more than a century and
no one's beat it yet and it'sgonna be very difficult to beat
that fungus.
It's a difficult battle and forthese people who claim, oh, I
have the magic bullet, you haveto be a little bit skeptical.
(33:19):
When people claim that they'vesolved them the fungus problem,
that doesn't mean that, you know, eventually we can have just
not trees back in the forest.
But even so, as I sort of endedmy book, I talk about this idea
that even if we came up with amagic bullet, it's gonna take at
least a millennium you know, 10centuries before the trees have
(33:43):
actually reestablishedthemselves in the eastern
deciduous forests.
So people need to startthinking more long term and stop
thinking about these, you know,quick fixes, short term kind of
solutions to the plight problem, at least I think.
If they do, then they'll have amuch more realistic and kind of
(34:05):
a sane approach to chestnutrestoration.
Steve Taylor (34:09):
And there's really no holes in the forest where
the chestnuts left.
The forests themselves havesort of moved on in a way to oak
hickory and the whole soilcomposition and everything is a
bit different.
Dr. Donald Davis (34:21):
Yeah, sure, there's lots happened in the
forest, and to just simply, youknow, think that you can plant
some chestnut trees and they'regoing to reestablish themselves
is again sort of looking at theproblem much too optimistically,
I think, than what the realityis.
Steve Taylor (34:40):
And they've always said it was just one gene.
Is they so much underplayed thesignificance of that?
It's just one gene, but thenwhy do you have all these
variants?
And obviously there's more toit than just that, you know,
throwing a gene at a tree orjust inserting it like a nail.
I mean there's a lot more.
I think they over simplified itand played the we are the
(35:01):
scientist hand, and now we'reseeing that, I mean, they were
the scientists, but they wereresearching the wrong tree for I
don't know how many years, manyyears before they found out
that they were doing fieldtrials on the wrong tree.
You know, mistakes do happen,right, but there seems to be a
(35:22):
bit of hubris where they're justnot backing off.
So, anne, what do people do ifthey are concerned about the
current petition to deregulatethe Darling 58?
Anne Petermann (35:35):
Sure.
Let me just get back one secondto what you just were saying,
though, about the whole one gene, one trait argument that was
put out in such, you know, somany different times and so many
different ways and, you know,got picked up by the New York
Times and the Wall StreetJournal and the Washington Post
and National Geographic, andblah, blah, blah all of these,
(35:56):
all of these major outlets thatwere promoting this, this big
lie, if you will.
You know, and how simple thisthing was.
It was going to just one genefrom wheat was going to we eat
wheat all the time and you knowthis is going to save the
American chestnut, this iconicmajestic tree.
But the reality is that it'sabout the genetic engineering
(36:18):
process, whether it's CRISPR orgene editing or transgenics.
It's really about the fact thatyou are messing around with,
you know, dna and you'resnipping it apart, or you're
adding things that have neverbeen in there before.
You're doing things to genesthat have not, that aren't
natural, and because of that,you don't know what's going to
(36:40):
happen.
Dr Ricardo Steinbrecher has areport that she's put out, that
she's revising right now, aboutthe risks of genetically
engineered trees and how youreally can't know because of the
mutations that happen insidethe genome when you do this kind
of genetic engineering theunpredictable impacts, the gene
silencing when the gene isturned off, for nobody knows
(37:03):
exactly why all of thesedifferent things, that it's not
just about the fact that thisone genetically engineered tree
didn't work out the way theythought or they got the wrong
genetically engineered treematerial in the first place.
It's the whole package.
You cannot geneticallyengineered trees and pretend to
understand what's going tohappen just to the tree, not to
(37:25):
mention the entire forestecosystem.
So, yeah, it's really importantthat people get involved in this
and make a big deal to get theUSDA to stop, to stop this
petition, in particular, the D58petition that is still pending,
that they could still approvethis faulty, damaged tree, which
(37:49):
is important to make thatprecedent, but it's also
important to stop future linesof all genetically engineered
trees, and so I would encouragepeople to go to the website for
the campaign, which isstopgetreesorg, and there's a
take action button there andthat will have the latest action
alerts that people can endorseto either send a letter, an
(38:13):
email to SUNY ESF asking them towithdraw the petition to the
USDA, or you can sign on to aletter to the USDA asking them
to reject this petition.
There's many different waysthat you can get involved, so I
encourage people to go tostopgetreesorg and find the take
(38:34):
action button.
That's the easiest thing thatpeople can do.
Steve Taylor (38:37):
Dr Davis, you said you wish more people had read
your book.
It's a great book.
I have read it.
I did an interview with youabout it.
Would you say a few words aboutyour book, the title, who
published it and where to findit?
Dr. Donald Davis (38:51):
Yes, the book was published by the University
of Georgia Press in November of2021.
But because of COVID, there wasa whole lot of promotion of the
book early on, although I didgive a lecture about the book at
the Forest History Society atDuke University.
That was well received.
The book covers basically10,000 years of American
(39:15):
chestnut history, starting withthe first Native Americans that
encountered the trees during thesort of late paleo period.
It goes all the way into the1950s and 1960s when you saw the
very last living large grows ofAmerican chestnut trees,
(39:38):
primarily in the SouthernAppalachians.
I talk about the importance ofthe trees on America's culture,
on the language, on the buildingtechniques, construction.
The Choctaw Indians evenconsidered the chestnut the
first living thing brought forthby the Creator.
(40:00):
There were all kinds ofinteresting anecdotes coming
from Native American cultureregarding the American chestnut.
Many Native American groupsconsidered the month of November
the chestnut month.
They even had a month namedafter the American chestnut.
The book is a history, but I dospend a concluding chapter
(40:28):
looking at the issue ofgenetically modified trees and
the possible impact that theycould have on the forest.
I'm also interested in how weapply all this history to the
real world and real worldproblems.
Steve Taylor (40:45):
Where does one find that book?
Dr. Donald Davis (40:47):
It's available on all the usual websites.
University of Georgia has theirown website, so probably if you
went to them, it would supporta non-profit more than the other
sites.
Of course, your local libraryhas a copy, so you don't have to
purchase it, you can just go tothe public library.
In fact, I did a recentWorldCat search and WorldCat
(41:10):
claims that the book is nowfound in almost 900 libraries
worldwide.
Steve Taylor (41:15):
It's a great book the American Chestnut An
Environmental History by DrDonald Davis.
Check it out.
Dr Donald Davis and Peter Min,thank you for joining us on
Breaking Green.
Dr. Donald Davis (41:29):
Thank you, steve, I really thank you for
having me on and I reallyenjoyed my time with you and Ann
.
Steve Taylor (41:37):
You have been listening to Breaking Green a
global justice ecology projectpodcast.
To learn more about GlobalJustice Ecology Project, visit
globaljusticeecologyorg.
Breaking Green is made possibleby tax-deductible donations by
people like you.
Please help us lift up thevoices of those working to
(41:57):
protect forests, defend humanrights and expose false
solutions.
Simply text GIVE G-I-V-E-21-716-257-4187.
That's 1-716-257-4187.
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