by Greg Walcher, E&E Legal Senior Policy Fellow
The Daily Sentinel
It is estimated that there are more trees in the eastern United States than when the first Europeans arrived in the 15th century. It is an encouraging story about mankind’s ability to restore what was harvested with reckless abandon during centuries of economic growth. But today’s forests, from the Atlantic Coast to the Mississippi River Valley, are not the same forests those early settlers found.
Today’s eastern forests are spectacular in the fall, with the wild red, orange and yellow leaves of the dominant oak and maple trees, along with hickory, beech, poplar and walnut. But the original American colonists lived in forests dominated by chestnut trees, often said to be so numerous that one could walk atop the forest canopy from the Carolinas to New York without ever touching any other species. Probably an exaggeration, but even in 1900 — after three centuries of harvesting — there were an estimated four billion American chestnuts. That was before the blight killed them. Almost all of them.
Last month the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service officially deregulated an American chestnut species called Darling 54, named for the benefactor who helped fund years of research leading to a new hybrid thought to be more resistant to the blight. Even before the decision was announced, though, there was already dissent among other groups working to re-establish the lost chestnut trees.
This is not the end of the race for Darling 54 researchers, who must also get permits from the Environmental Protection Agency before being able to release and sell the new chestnut trees. But it was a significant milestone on a very long and difficult journey. Chestnuts were highly valued by Native Americans and early European colonists alike. The nuts are abundant, rich in calories and high in Vitamin C and antioxidants. The wood was rot-resistant and straight-grained, making it ideal for posts, fences, log cabins and furniture. Early American chestnut furniture is highly prized today and many of the millions of telegraph and phone poles made from chestnut throughout the 19th century are still in use.
