North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[Heron Breen <breen@fedcoseeds.com>]

Ginda and others, I think the most important lesson from the Chestnut is one 
of 
our perspective. That perspective is one of Nature not knowing enough, not 
being 
perfect, and at the same time our economy pushing her threshholds beyond any 
realistic expectation. As a younger person, I know my generation is facing 
the 
spectre of complete enviromental collapse in the next fifty to one hundred 
years. 
Many of us have pursued degrees in ecology, wildlife management, and botany 
related fields only to find Industrial Ag and Timber interests contolling the 
entire infrastructure of research and funding. A piddling 250,000 dollars was 
given by the feds to TACF, while millions will be spent to build more museums 
in 
our already disney-land like capital. Lobbying and fighting hard are our only 
real 
options, as without miracles and chance will any work on such small funding 
levels 
combat SOD and invasive species as well as pollution-caused die offs. I would 
ask 
all of us to stop buying camps in rural areas, lakes etc, to stop driving 
thousands of miles for vacations and to work right where we live, a trait I 
see 
much honored by NAFEXers, us all dabbling in our backyards. Saving our 
backyards 
and our developed surroundings is a great place to start, while we leave 
nature as 
much breathing room. A great saying was once: Well, we have 10% wilderness 
left, 
precarious as it is in that amount. Let's leave that 10% alone. This was 
forty 
years ago by the then president of the Sierra Club. How much remains depends 
on 
the continuing redefinition of wilderness, I suppose. 
Truly telling of our human perspective of nature are the hillsides of stumps 
following the spread of the Chestnut blight. Those forests were stripped, not 
because they were dead but because they were infected. Every neighborhood 
tree 
that was remotely ailing was removed, with the justification that it might 
spread 
to others. Needless to say timber companies had a field day, cutting 
everywhere, 
even inside national parks, taking not just the chestnuts I would add. Those 
millions of trees, if left alone, would've yeilded at least hundreds of 
resistant 
or immune trees. Now, this same philosophy of Timber harvest is being used 
for 
hardwood borers, hemlock borers, and soon SOD. While fire suppression 
eliminates 
natures culling mechanism, habitats erupt with new and unknown dominant 
species, 
and the gene pool of the forests will take untold centuries to reselect two-
hundred foot tall pines, if ever. 
WE must find a way to speak for the trees, forgetting timber quality or 
edibility 
for a moment. Nature spent thousands of centuries creating what we had. Maybe 
we 
can spend a few million dollars to save what's left. Start calling your 
senators 
and congress people. I don't think it would be greedy to ask for a couple of 
BILLION to do some real work with TACF. Maybe that would get us geared up for 
SOD.
Heron Breen
On Fri, 18 Jun 2004 20:55 , list@ginda.us sent:


>>
>
>Or not pessimistic enough.  i have been googling "sudden oak death' and 
>it seems that chestnuts are probably susceptible, too.  As are beech 
>trees.  This might be worse than chestnut blight.  US sites don't 
>mention chestnuts, since there are so few of them here.  But British 
>ones do.
>
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