Chestnut restoration.

• Author: Powell, William
• Position: FROM READERS - Letter to the Editor

We would like to compliment Karen Charman for her in-depth research on the article "The Shape of Forests To Come" [May/June], but we disagree with the generally negative slant of the article and would like to correct a few mistakes.

We believe that environmental problems caused by the human race should, where possible, be corrected, and that is why the restoration of the American chestnut has interested us for over 25 years. We live in an exciting age where the new tools of biotechnology are being used to cure human diseases, increase our food supply in environmentally friendly ways, and to remove pollutants from contaminated water and soils. Some of these same tools are now available to help restore tree species devastated by exotic diseases. We believe it would be wrong not to use this technology for the benefit of our environment.

The American Chestnut Research & Restoration Project collaborates with researchers in many fields, including mycologists looking at mychorrizal interactions and entomologists looking at insect interactions. As the research moves from the lab into field trials, we will add on ecologists, wildlife...