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Breaking Green
The USDA Just Cleared a Defective GMO Tree for Release into the Wild with Anne Petermann
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A genetically engineered (GE) chestnut modified with a wheat gene is being framed as a conservation breakthrough, but the reality is far messier and far more permanent. After the USDA deregulated the GE American chestnut for release, we asked the question regulators keep sidestepping: what does “safety” even mean when a tree can live for centuries, spread pollen for miles, and reproduce in ecosystems we cannot control?
We speak with Anne Petermann of Global Justice Ecology Project and the Campaign to Stop GE Trees about the Darling 54 GE chestnut and its defects documented along the way, including loss of blight resistance, high mortality rates and other serious problems tied to the genetic engineering process. We also unpack the next regulatory hurdle at the Environmental Protection Agency, where the fungus-resistance trait could be treated as a plant-incorporated protectant, raising thorny issues around tracking, accountability, and the basic impossibility of recalling a self-spreading organism once it is loose in the wild.
Then we step back and look at what’s already happening without genetic engineering: wild American chestnuts persisting and returning across the range, breeding work to strengthen natural blight resistance in wild American chestnuts, and a vivid on-the-ground example captured in our short film featuring naturalist Bernd Heinrich, where multiple generations of chestnuts are thriving and reproducing. We also dig into the controversy around GE chestnuts planted o the White House lawn, and why cross-border pollen drift puts Canada’s endangered chestnut population in the blast zone.
If you care about forest ecology, biodiversity, and real restoration, listen through to the end for ways to get involved, then subscribe, share the episode, and leave a review so more people can follow what the USDA, EPA, and the GE tree industry do next.
You can find the full catalog of previous episodes and sign up to have future episodes delivered straight to your inbox at breakinggreen.org. Breaking Green is made possible by tax-deductible donations by people like you.
Please help us lift up the voices of those working to protect forests, defend human rights, and expose false solutions. Simply text Give G I V E 2 1716 257 4187. That’s 1716 257 4187.
A GE Chestnut Gets Deregulated
Speaker 2Welcome to Breaking Green, a podcast by Global Justice Ecology Project. On August 27th, the United States Department of Agriculture deregulated a defective, genetically engineered American chestnut tree. A further review by the Environmental Protection Agency is needed, but this decision is a major move towards approving a dangerous and irreversible experiment. If given further permission by the EPA, researchers and commercial interests intend to release for the first time a genetically engineered plant into the wild. This decision to deregulate comes during a multi-decade effort to naturally restore the tree, as well as evidence of blight resistance in some natural stands. On this episode of Breaking Green, we will speak with Anne Petermann. Anne Petermann is executive director of Global Justice Ecology Project and International Coordinator of the Campaign to Stop GE trees. Anne Petermann has worked to protect and defend forests since 1990. Anne Peterman, welcome to Breaking Green.
Speaker 1Thanks very much for having me on again, Steve.
Speaker 2Anne Petermann, it's great to have you, and you are executive director of Global Justice Ecology Project, which produces this podcast, and you've been on several times, but we wanted you back on because there has been a major development that the United States Department of Agriculture, APHIS, has deregulated the genetically engineered American chestnut tree for release into the wild.
Speaker 1That's correct. Yeah. So not that long ago, just a few weeks ago, as of this broadcast, the USDA deregulated, in other words, they approved the unregulated release of these genetically engineered chestnuts. We don't even call them American chestnuts because they have a trans gene from wheat in them. So they're not really American chestnuts. They're some other kind of weird chimera. But anyway, um, the USDA has decided that these trees, which have documented defects, I should mention, we can get into that a little later. Um, they have decided that these genetically defective chestnut trees, genetically engineered chestnut trees, can be released into wild forests with no regulation, no monitoring, and no way to recall them if something goes wrong. So that's what we're dealing with now. And uh we, as the campaign to stop genetically engineered trees, which is coordinated by Global Justice Ecology Project, have been meeting
The EPA Decision Still Ahead
Speaker 1and talking about what steps are next.
Speaker 2So are they cleared for release into the wild now or is there another regulatory hurdle?
Speaker 1There is another regulatory hurdle. So the USDA was kind of the first step that the researchers named that they needed to get across. Um and now they need to get permits from the Environmental Protection Agency, the EPA, because the plant includes the ability to resist fungus. And so under the EPA, it could be regulated as a plant incorporated protectant, a PIP. And if that's the case, if they decide that it needs to be regulated as such, then they need to have the ability to track exactly where these trees are in the environment so that they can be re-registered as PIPs later. So it's it's very much the the researchers very much don't want that to happen, of course, because there is no way to track these trees once they're out in the environment. They're gonna just spread. Um, they're they're going to contaminate their native wild relatives. That's what they're designed to do. So, yeah, so that's what's next. They just got a um an approval by the EPA for field trials, for three years of field trials. Um, they don't necessarily have to wait the three years, the EPA, to make a decision, but that's what recently happened. And they had a public comment period, very funny, they had a public comment period on this major precedent-setting event. And four people responded to the public comment period because it was get they were kind of released it very quietly. They closed it down very quietly. You know, basically no one knew what was happening. So that's that's our government for you. Let's uh let's hide it and uh let's, you know, approve things without any actual scientific evidence of safety.
Speaker 2But there was a lot of comment uh on the deregulation process, thousands and thousands of people talking about uh how this is a dangerous and irreversible experiment. Even uh the American Chestnut Foundation had, which was an early supporter, withdrew its support because there were so many problems with the tree. Uh this was the first time uh uh there would be if it actually goes into effect, gets EPA approval, this will be the first time a genetically engineered tree is released into the wild to spread. And we really don't know how that's going to affect the
The Darling 54 Defect Story
Speaker 2real wild American chestnut that is still out there, and we should talk about that as well.
Speaker 1Exactly, exactly. Yeah, it's it's it's pretty outrageous what the USDA did. So they went through years. The first petition for deregulation was submitted to the USDA for this tree in 2020. Then in 2023, in late 2023, it was revealed by some of the researchers that the trees had these amazing problems with them that they didn't anticipate. They were, they were losing their blight resistance, they were dying of the blight. Um, about a quarter of the trees were just dying outright. Nobody knew why, and a lot of the trees were very sickly. So, you know, the American Chestnut Foundation researchers, which were doing a lot of the field trials, were saying, What is going on here? And um the it turned out that their partners at SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry, who were leading the research, were doing the transgenic uh research in their labs, had given the American chestnut researchers the wrong pollen back in 2016. So they gave them the pollen not from the tree they thought they were researching, but from a different one called the Darling 54, which had tremendous genetic issues, including insertion of the transgene from wheat in the wrong chromosome, which deleted an important gene believed to be connected to drought tolerance, um, and caused all of these other issues. So, you know, it was a it was really a nightmare. Um, and it caused a huge rift between the American Chestnut Foundation and the College of Environmental Science and Forestry, ESF, uh, because of this. So the two decided they were, well, they just did, they decided they weren't going to work together anymore, let's say it that way. And as you mentioned, TACF withdrew their support for the deregulation petition.
Speaker 2So the American Chestnut Foundation had withdrawn its support, uh, citizens' organizations really did highlight how this is a dangerous, irreversible experiment, and that there's really no recalling these trees once we start putting them out there into the wild. What were some of the major safety issues or questions that uh that GJEP and the Stop Genetically Engineered Trees campaign put forward?
Speaker 1Aaron Powell The major concerns that we had about these genetically engineered trees was the first one was this has never been done before. Okay, so nowhere on the on the planet has a genetically engineered plant been released into the wild with the intention of self-spreading and contaminating its wild relatives. That's never happened before with any plant, and especially not with a tree. And as you know, you know, trees aren't annual crops. They live for um hundreds of years, in the case of the American chestnut, and they can pollinate, spread their pollen or seeds for for several miles, um, especially because, you know, blue jays pick up the seeds in their beak and they can fly all over the place with these seeds, and then they plant them in the ground to save them for later, and many of those turn into seedlings. So, you know, uh this is one of those things that if there is a problem, which there clearly is with the Darling 54, the defective Darling 54, there would be no way to call that problem back. Once those trees are in the forest, they're there. There's nothing that you can do about it, you can't reverse that problem. Um so that is the major issue. But beyond that is the spreading of these defective traits to wild chestnuts. So we at the Campaign to Stop GE Trees and Global Justice Ecology Project have been seeing wild American chestnuts coming back on their own, and also projects like from the American Chestnut Cooperators Foundation that are breeding blight-resistant wild American chestnuts together
Why Self-Spreading Can’t Be Recalled
Speaker 1to make, you know, future generations of blight-resistant wild American chestnuts. These are happening all over New England and the the American the ACCF is uh is located in Virginia. There are there are trees coming back in Pennsylvania, in New York. So, you know, there are chestnuts that have survived the blight, and there are chestnuts that are coming back from the stumps of the chestnuts that were destroyed when the blight went through, either by the blight itself or by all the logging that was done to um supposedly mitigate the blight. And, you know, these trees are coming back. So there is actually no good reason for these, for this risk, for these genetically engineered trees to be released into the wild. There's no, there's no need for it. The trees are coming back on their own with a little assistance from people, they could come back quite effectively. Um, it throughout much of the range. Not all of the range, because there are other pathogens that kill chestnuts, but throughout much of their range, they could come back. And with climate change pushing the species north into northern New England and eastern Canada, you know, the tree really has a great opportunity to come back. And all of that is at complete risk and peril by the genetically engineered chestnuts being released into forests.
Speaker 2Global Justice Ecology Project uh released a film last December which featured uh famous uh biologist, Bernd Heinrich, uh, who has thousands
Evidence The Wild Chestnut Returns
Speaker 2of chestnut trees growing three generations, and it looks like a real restoration population. Could you tell us a little bit about that?
Speaker 1Yeah, and uh I'll talk talk about the movie, and I will also mention that since the deregulation was announced, the movie has been getting a new spike in viewers, which is great. So we're actually past 75,000 people who've seen this film, you know, in the last, what is it, eight or nine months. So that's pretty exciting. Um the film documents, goes to Barnt's land. The, you know, Barnt Heinrich is a is a renowned naturalist. He has books about his studies of ravens and other biology books. He did a year in the main woods. He has a lot of books out there based on his experiences as a naturalist, and he comes from a long family of naturalists, which is very interesting as well. And he took us on a tour of his land and he showed us the original trees that he planted. There were four that he planted, two were killed by porcupines, two survived, and they are huge trees. Um, by you know, by the standards of modern American chestnuts, um they're certainly not the old, you know, the ancient American chestnuts that were 12 feet wide, but they are they're quite sizable. And they have put out, Barrent did a count one year and found that they put out 3,000 chestnut burrs per year. So that is, you know, 9,000 seeds that each one of these trees is putting out every year, which explains why there are now thousands of trees growing all over his land. And some other trees that were progeny of those original trees are also flowering and producing nuts, and they are starting to have seedlings as well. So we're seeing not just the first population, we're seeing subsequent populations as well. So that it's really an exciting um thing to see, to walk through all those chestnuts, to see the chestnuts that are 15 feet high, 20 feet high, 30 feet high, 40 feet high. Um, and Barrent even climbed one, which was amazing. He's like 82. He climbs this tree to the top of it so he can throw uh one of the burrs down for us. So uh it was really a fun movie and a good news movie. You know, that was the idea was we wanted to show the chestnut coming back on its own. So if people want to see it, it's can be found at the wildamericanchestnut.org, or you can just do a search on YouTube and find it. Um, and you can see for yourself all of these chestnuts and get a get a good uh a good dose of good news for a change.
A Film That Shows Recovery
Speaker 2This is your host, Steve Taylor, and we will be back right after this.
SpeakerIf you're enjoying this episode of Breaking Green, please subscribe or follow wherever you get your podcasts. The interviews heard here are often ignored by mainstream media, and without your support, these stories would not be covered. Consider leaving a review and sharing it with friends and colleagues. You can find the full catalog of previous episodes and sign up to have future episodes delivered straight to your inbox at breakinggreen.org. You can't find freedom anywhere else.
Chestnut Is Not Extinct
Speaker 2Welcome back to Breaking Green. Uh there's been a lot of other reports of certain stands which appear to have a certain natural blight tolerance, or let's say they're they're they're just thriving, um, is not as ubiquitous of a tree as it was, but it definitely defies the narrative that they're just extinct and they don't survive into maturity. Burns land alone shows that, you know, with three populations that you have what looks like a restoration population right there. And another person who has really chimed in on that is uh Dr. Donald Davis, the author of The American Chestnut uh and environmental history. He's an expert in chestnuts, and in an upcoming film by Global Justice Ecology Project, he's gonna talk about how, yes, it does it does look like in some areas the chestnuts are coming back, and it is a good story, and he is firmly opposed uh to this release of the genetically engineered variety. Um so tell us about that and your conversation with Dr. Donald Davis that uh we're gonna be profiling.
Speaker 1Sure, yeah, it was pretty fun, actually. We traveled out to the homestead of Henry David Thoreau, where Dr. Davis had been invited to speak about the American chestnut, and we got a chance to hear him give the presentation and then interview him afterward at the homestead. We also traveled over to Walden Pond because when you if you're there, you might as well, right? You gotta see Walden Pond. And um it was a really, it was a really interesting conversation. And the thing that he kept coming back to was that the American chestnut is not extinct. There's this argument um out there that that I think industry-funded researchers keep putting forward that the American chestnut is extinct, that we have to have genetic engineering, or the American chestnut will not come back, it will go extinct. And that is sheer nonsense. And that is kind of one of the things that Dr. Davis points out in his book and in this interview, you know, that there are still 400 million American chestnuts growing in the forest, of which many, many thousands are mature enough to have seeds and flowers, and they are reproducing. So, you know, we can't say something is extinct if it has uh, you know, a decent population that is continuing to produce offspring, and those offspring are producing offspring. That's not uh an extinct population. So, you know, it was a fun interview, and I look forward to putting it together into a film which will be released sometime this fall, and uh, you know, will be another, I think another good news story about the the trajectory of the
White House Planting And Pollen Escape
Speaker 1American chestnut, provided these genetically engineered defects don't get into its way.
Speaker 2Aaron Ross Powell Well, uh that's a good news story. Uh the the current bad news story is that there was a deregulation uh of uh the tree by the United States Department of Agriculture, even after some of the main proponents said, hey, we we no longer support this. We're withdrawing our support. It was not surprising, it was disappointing that that was the statement by uh G-Jep on that, uh, but it it did seem like it was going into the other direction, that is, until there was a report that the Trump administration had two genetically engineered trees on the White House lawn, and they failed to follow protocols to uh keep the pollen from spreading, and then all of a sudden, amidst the controversy, there was a decision just to deregulate, almost to like, well, who cares? We're gonna deregulate it, we screwed up, but you know what, we'll just deregulate it.
Speaker 1Yeah, yeah, that was pretty, pretty weird, um, I have to say. Uh what happened was on Arbor Day of this year, the company that is planning to, as they put it, use AI-assisted mass cloning to s to develop and sell, actually, they use the word manufacture to manufacture and sell one million of these defective GE tree clones per year. They joined with another researcher and some other uh some other GE chestnut proponents to plant these darling 54 GE trees, GE chestnuts, on the White House lawn, as you pointed out. And they tried to make a big deal about it. It really got almost no media attention, which was kind of interesting. But um yeah, it was revealed not that long ago. So that was back in April that they planted the trees. Then it was revealed not that long ago that they had, by a whistleblower, that the people responsible for these trees had not followed the USDA's own permit. So the government violated the government's permit in planting these trees because they didn't control the pollen. And so there was an article in the Washington Post that pointed this out and that quoted someone actually from the American Chestnut Foundation, saying that it's very possible that that escaped pollen from those trees could have contaminated native wild chestnuts growing nearby in Rock Creek Park or elsewhere, that there are a number of chestnuts already growing in the Washington, D.C. area that were at risk from that escaped pollen. So it was a pretty big deal that they planted these trees and then didn't bother to take care of the pollen, the genetically engineered pollen from these trees. Um and yeah, it's interesting timing that you know all of this happened just before the USDA then decided to deregulate them. So that they violate the permit, then oh, doesn't matter because the tree trees are now deregulated by the USDA. Um it's yeah, it's it's pretty disgusting, really.
Canada’s Endangered Chestnuts At Risk
Speaker 2Talk to us about uh uh Canada.
Speaker 1Yeah, there is a variety of American chestnut that grows in southern Ontario, so just north of Lake Erie, actually. Um there are some uh there is a Canadian population of American chestnuts. And in Canada, they are considered an endangered species. So they are regulated as an endangered species in Canada. And the Canadians are not super thrilled about the idea of these genetically engineered American chestnuts um contaminating that you know population of American chestnuts in Canada. So they are, you know, doing what they can to prevent that. But, you know, pollen, tree pollen does not respect borders. Uh that's one of the issues, the major issues with the USDA's deregulation of the GE tree is that you know, the trees, once the pollen starts spreading, there's nowhere that will be safe from that genetically engineered pollen. Not national parks, not national forests, not state parks, not tribal lands, you know, that are supposed to be sovereign territories, uh, and certainly not country borders. So, you know, the Southern Ontario is not very far from upstate New York, where a lot of the genetically engineered tree uh chestnut tree research is going on. So they're quite concerned about that, and uh as well they should be. And it's it's we're it's uh yet to be seen exactly what they're going to do about it, but it is definitely a major uh area of concern.
Speaker 2Aaron Powell It's interesting to note that there were decades of work by groups like the American Ch Chestnut Cooperators uh organization and others that were trying to uh uh foster blight resistance by um breeding what appeared to be uh naturally blight-resistant trees. There was even some cross-breeding programs, but there were some efforts to bring back the trees naturally. Uh there was more and more evidence of the trees uh uh returning naturally, not in in necessarily all of their original range, as you had noted, uh, but had been moving northward because of climate change. And then now it it just seems so unnecessary. And um it you You know, w with it being announced right after uh this uh escape Yeah, this escape right after this gaffe by the Trump uh White House uh is it's just uh disheartening. Is there any hope here uh moving forward that we can, you know, actually put the put the toothpaste back in the tube and uh hope that the actual real American chestnut continues to grow in the way uh are or continue to return, at least in the way that we're starting to see it now.
Speaker 1Aaron Ross Powell Yeah,
How People Can Still Fight Back
Speaker 1of course. You know, the there's always uh people have still have power. I know it doesn't f maybe feel that way so much with this bizarre administration that we're living under, but um it is true, you know, people have a lot of power to make change irrespective of what the government is doing, or to pressure the government into making different decisions. Um and in the case of the USDA, that decision's been made. The EPA decision has not yet been made, but there's also this company, Silva Bio, that wants to, you know, sell a million of these GE trees to plant in the wild forests every year. And certainly they will be um sensitive to pressure, right? They need to get investors, they need to get people to support this work, they need to have an audience to sell these trees to, right? So there's a lot of um ability for us as a campaign and for us as people who care about the American chestnut, the real wild American chestnut, uh coming back. There is a lot we can still do. And so I hope that people will get engaged. Um, there's, you know, there's ways to take action on the stopgetrees.org website. Uh, you know, there's there's ways people can get involved. And as we develop this campaign more, you know, we have to sort of redevelop our strategies now that the USDA decision, uh deregulation decision has been made. But people can get engaged, you know, we'll be in touch with people about what they can do moving forward. There's all kinds of things that people can can do. We just did a protest. We went, uh G JEP, myself, and the assistant director Heather went to a mycology summit, a summit of people very interested and concerned about fungus. And those folks were very interested to know that these American chestnut trees have been genetically engineered to resist fungus, which, as they understand very clearly, is a serious, could have very serious repercussions for soils, which have these incredible, complex um microbial and fungal communities that you know do amazing things. I couldn't describe it on the on the show. People should check it out if they're interested. There's a book called Finding the Mother Tree that talks a lot about how the fungal communities allow trees to communicate, um, allow trees to share information about diseases and uh threats and so forth. Anyway, it's amazing what fungus do. And so the people at this mycology summit were very concerned about this American chestnut. And so we did a protest. Um, you know, they organized a protest, they held signs uh, you know, to directed towards Silva Bio saying, don't do this. This is a mistake, this is um, this is going to cause the the the destruction of the species, not going to save the species. And so there's all kinds of things. The point being there's all kinds of things that people can do and all kinds of ways to get involved.
Speaker 2When you talk about trees and genetically engineering trees, um what are some of the other ramifications we could see? There's there's even proposals to create our genetically engineer a non-rotting tree. Tell us a little bit how this is part of a bigger picture.
The Bigger Push For GE Trees
Speaker 1Yeah, yeah, this is definitely not the only tree that's being genetically engineered, but it is precedent-setting in that way, in that it is the first genetically engineered tree to be deregulated in the United States. So, um, you know, there are, as I said, a lot of other trees being engineered. The one that you're mentioning is by a different company called Living Carbon, and they make their money doing forest carbon offsets. So they sell carbon offsets to big polluters that don't want to stop polluting, they want to keep polluting, but pretend that they are doing something for the climate, and so they buy these forest carbon offset um plantations or plantings in uh and and living carbon loves to do those, loves to sell those. They make a lot of money selling forest carbon offsets, which we could have a whole show about why forest carbon offsets are are crap. But uh anyway, they are developing genetically engineered trees that don't rot as part of this plan to supposedly reinvent the Carboniferous period, by which I mean have trees that never rot, sequester carbon, cut them down, bury them, sink them in the oceans, do whatever, and then they will never rot. And then you grow more trees that subsor absorb more carbon, then you bury them or put them somewhere, and then you grow, you know, it's it's this is it's a crazy, crazy idea that you can grow trees, cut them down, and save the climate that way. Uh, and again, nobody knows what the impacts of this will be. And as I mentioned earlier, fungus are critically important to healthy ecosystems. So developing trees that kill fungus is positively, you know, it's mind-blowingly bad. So um, yeah, that's another plan. Uh it's, you know, the it goes the list goes on and on. The fundamental thing about GE trees is they have been developed by industry for industrial purposes, like, you know, paper, timber, um, you know, engineered wood, all of these things that trees are used for. And they've had a hard time convincing the public that this is a good idea. So they came up with the genetically engineered American chestnut as a way to try to convince the public that GE trees could be used in conservation, could be used to restore tree species. And it's, you know, the it's a PR scheme. It's a it's a PR scam, is what it is. And so that's what they've used the GE tree for. And you can follow the money. I mean, it's not like you don't have to believe us, you can follow the money to see who has funded this research from Arborgen to Monsanto to Duke Energy. I mean, it's been a whole litany of companies that have funded this research. So Microsoft and Apple are funding Living Carbon's work along with Toyota. I, you know, it's it's it's crazy once you start looking at who's behind this stuff. It there's no altruism involved here. It's all about money.
Speaker 2And let's give another shout out to uh the the uh documentary, the short documentary uh with uh Barent Heinrich. Uh you can see that at the uh wildamericanchestnut.org. It's a great film. Uh the next one is, I believe, going to focus a little more, bring up the uh origin of those apparently blight-resistant seedlings.
Speaker 1Yes, Barrent's trees came from some seeds from a conservation district, the Wexford conservation district in Michigan that are associated with um a virus that actually attacks the fungus and makes it weaker, which is believed to be perhaps why these trees have survived the blight in such such great numbers. Um, yeah, so it there's gonna be a lot of
Where To Learn More And Help
Speaker 1in the new movie, which is exciting. I'm looking forward to getting that project finished and out there. And then the other, the previous one, the good news story, you know, that's called the Wild American Chestnut A Giant Returns, and you can find it at thewildamericanchestnut.org. Don't forget the the or you'll go somewhere else. So thewildamericanchestnut.org.
Speaker 2Is there anything else you'd like to comment on, Ann?
Speaker 1Just a reminder: if you want more details on any of this stuff, you can go to the stopgetrees.org page, and there's a whole section on the chestnut. There's a petition where you can sign up to uh register your opposition to the chestnut, get more information, et cetera, et cetera. So there's uh we look forward to people getting more involved and appreciate you having us on to uh to let people know what's uh what's the latest on this really interesting and important issue.
Speaker 2And Peterman, thank you for joining us at Breaking Green.
Speaker 1Thanks a lot, Steve.
Speaker 2You have been listening to Breaking Green, a global justice ecology project podcast. To learn more about Global Justice Ecology Project, visit Global JusticeEcology.org. Breaking Green is made possible by tax-deductible donations by people like you. Please help us lift up the voices of those working to protect forests, defend human rights, and expose false solutions. Simply text GIV GI VE2 1716 257 4187. That's 1716 257 4187.