The American chestnut once dominated the Eastern woodlands. NPR’s Scott Simon talks to Andrew Newhouse, an environmental biologist, about efforts to bring these trees back from the brink of extinction.
Transcript
SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
The American chestnut once dominated forests in the eastern U.S., Maine to Mississippi. They were majestic trees, and the nut’s an important source of food for people and wild animals. But a deadly blight pushed these giants to the brink of extinction. There could be hope now to bring them back because of a genetically engineered disease-resistant chestnut tree project. That effort hit a milestone last week. Andrew Newhouse joins us now. He’s director of the American Chestnut Research and Restoration Project at the State University of New York. Thanks so much for being with us.
ANDREW NEWHOUSE: You’re welcome. Glad to be here.
SIMON: What was the milestone?
NEWHOUSE: Yeah. We received the first of a few different approvals from U.S. federal regulatory agencies that we would need in order to start distributing these trees and start using them for restoration.
SIMON: Why do you want to do that?
NEWHOUSE: Well, as you said, these trees were really important. They were unique parts of our forest ecosystem, and now they’re mostly gone. And so people have been trying for many years to restore or replace or treat or protect American chestnuts. So this project, using biotechnology, is really a unique approach and offers, I think, a lot of hope in light of threats to not only American chestnuts, but also other important native trees.
SIMON: What’s the role you think they could play?
NEWHOUSE: They could fill some of the same roles they did previously. Of course, they could provide a food product. They could be helpful for people, for wildlife and also for offering an example of unique approaches to conservation.
SIMON: How do you make them resistant to disease?
NEWHOUSE: We use a process called genetic engineering. So our team has added one new gene to the American chestnuts. The gene we use came from wheat, and it’s not actually a gene for resistance, we would say. It helps the trees tolerate the blight. So instead of repelling the blight fungus or preventing the trees from getting the disease, this just reduces the amount of damage that the blight causes to the trees.
SIMON: As I don’t have to tell you, Mr. Newhouse, genetically modified organisms are controversial. Critics who say there’s just not enough research into how they could affect us. I wonder what you say.
NEWHOUSE: I would say we have done a lot of research – our team with the chestnut tree and many other labs. So we do understand a lot about how these organisms work in their environment. The regulatory agencies have reviewed this in great detail. And so I think these are actually some of the most-studied trees.
SIMON: But why not just old-fashioned breeding?
NEWHOUSE: Traditional breeding is actually a lot more complicated in this case because there’s so many different genes that go into blight resistance. And so keeping track of all of those different genes and making sure they all end up in the same individual is a lot more complicated than just adding a single gene.
SIMON: Do you think we’ll begin to see chestnut trees in the wild again?
NEWHOUSE: I absolutely hope so. I do want to acknowledge it’ll be a gradual process. It won’t suddenly restore American chestnuts across their whole original range, but we will be able to see this and be able to have hope, I think, for protecting other trees as well.
SIMON: When might we be able to see a chestnut tree in our midst?
NEWHOUSE: We’re hoping to be able to start distributing trees within a few years. But like I said, this is going to be a gradual process and will really take decades before we start seeing kind of landscape-scale changes. But definitely, people will be able to get involved and be able to contribute to some of these plantings and be able to see initial progress toward restoration hopefully pretty soon.
SIMON: Environmental scientist Andrew Newhouse. Thanks so much for being with us.
NEWHOUSE: You’re very welcome.
(SOUNDBITE OF MATMOS’ “FOR THE TREES”)
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