USDA May Allow Genetically Modified Trees to Be Released Into the Wild (Image by Stock File)
A genetically engineered chestnut tree may be the first to spread into forests, setting dangerous global precedents.
By Anne Petermann
On August 18, 2020, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) published a petition by researchers at the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry (ESF) seeking federal approval to release their genetically engineered (GE) Darling 58 (D58) American chestnut tree into U.S. forests. Researchers claim the transgenic D58 tree will resist the fungal blight that, coupled with rampant overlogging, decimated the American chestnut population in the early 20th century. In fact, the GE American chestnut is a Trojan horse meant to open the doors to commercial GE trees designed for industrial plantations.
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Members of the Austin Parcel Flood Plain Forest Restoration Collaboration were recognized for their floodplain restoration work with a Vermont Tree Steward Volunteer Group Award. Photo courtesy of the VT UCF.
Burlington – The Vermont Urban and Community Forestry Program (VT UCF) recently bestowed Tree Steward Awards on several Vermonters for their commitment to protecting and preserving their community s forests and trees.
The Award Winners
VERMONT ARBOR DAY AWARD - This award went to two dedicated individuals who have made a difference in their community s urban and community forest.
Jane Brown, Waterbury Center, was the first landscape architect hired by the Vermont Agency of Transportation, a position she held for 23 years. She was involved in several transportation corridor renovation projects, including Main Street in Waterbury and Route 7 in South Burlington and Brandon. Brown has served on the Vermont Urban and Community Forestry Advisory Council since 1999 and
In 1904, the forester for the Bronx Zoo noticed something unusual. Some of the zooâs trees were sick. They looked wilted and scorched, with ugly cankers growing out of them. Hermann Merkel called in a mycologist, a fungus expert. By the time William A. Murrill figured out the cause two years later, the disease had spread as far south as Virginia.
And that is how the great chestnut blight began. Within just a few decades, most American chestnuts were gone, whole forests wiped out by something we couldnât see (at least not without a microscope).
Today, we donât fully appreciate what happened with the chestnut. Thatâs because weâre living in the arborial equivalent of a post-apocalyptic horror, with no real memory of what came before. For us, the forests we see around us are normal, yet theyâre not normal. They are what remained after their most dominant species was rendered functionally extinct.
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