Failure of the GE American Chestnut with Anne Petermann and Dr. Donald Davis

Breaking Green

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

2. Introduction to Episode (00:00:27)

3. Introduction of Anne Petermann and Dr. Donald Davis (00:01:01)

4. What is the Darling 58 GE American Chestnut Tree? (00:03:08)

5. History of the American Chestnut Tree (00:05:22)

6. Dr. Davis' Criticism of GE American Chestnut (00:08:48)

7. The Campaign to STOP GE Trees (00:10:26)

8. A Dangerous and Irreversible Experiment (00:13:51)

9. TACF Mirrors Concerns Long Held by Opposition to Darling 58 (00:18:31)

10. SUNY is Still Persuing Deregulation of GE Chestnut (00:21:52)

11. Careerism Versus Science (00:29:38)

12. Forest Ecosystem and Soils are Different than When Chestnuts Dominated (00:34:06)

13. One Trait but Many Unknowns (00:34:39)

14. How to Take Action (00:35:19)

15. Where to Find Dr. Davis' Book (00:38:37)

16. Outro (00:41:24)