"What are the consequences of imposing human values on the natural world? The blight may seem evil to us, but the from the vantage point of the fungus, that other parasite we await might be considered equally evil.
"Perhaps, Frost is ultimately reminding us, our tendency to view nature in terms of our notions of good and bad, desirable and undesirable, can wreak its own kind of evil. Certainly the American chestnut would never have been pushed to the brink of extinction were it not for human agency. Humans introduced the chestnut blight. The tree's plight is a direct result of our visions of what our gardens, our personal Edens, should contain. It's a lesson to bear in mind as we press forward in efforts to redress the blight and restore our perfect tree." (page 128)
"Unfortunately, it's easy to overlook the change. Diseases and insects spread slowly. The losses they produce accumulate over time, without any obvious beginning or end. By the time the chestnut forests were gone, there were whole new generations who didn't know anything was missing. 'One of the penalties of an ecological education is that one lives alone in a world of wounds,' Leopold wrote. But in an era when there's talk of a widespread 'nature deficit disorder', how many of us have the expertise to recognize the wounds that are being inflicted? It's easy for someone like me, a city dweller with an untrained eye, to look out over a forest vista – as I did in Patrick County, Virginia – and naïvely be reassured by the rolling waves of green. That took place early in my research for this book, and at the time, I did not yet understand that the scene I was admiring was far from a picture of health. In just one example of the troubles now plaguing the southern Appalachian woods, the oak trees that filled the chestnut's place in the forests are themselves in the midst of a major die-back caused by a complicated disease complex known as oak decline. And as those oaks die, they are being replaced by trees like red maple that have even less value to wildlife. As one forest ecologist told me, 'When you have tree species after tree species disappearing, what worries me is there will still be trees and shrubs and people will think their forests are beautiful. But to those who knew what the forest once looked like, it will look like the ruins of an ancient civilization." (page 224)
From American Chestnut: The Life, Death, and Rebirth of a Perfect Tree by Susan Freinkel
"Perhaps, Frost is ultimately reminding us, our tendency to view nature in terms of our notions of good and bad, desirable and undesirable, can wreak its own kind of evil. Certainly the American chestnut would never have been pushed to the brink of extinction were it not for human agency. Humans introduced the chestnut blight. The tree's plight is a direct result of our visions of what our gardens, our personal Edens, should contain. It's a lesson to bear in mind as we press forward in efforts to redress the blight and restore our perfect tree." (page 128)
"Unfortunately, it's easy to overlook the change. Diseases and insects spread slowly. The losses they produce accumulate over time, without any obvious beginning or end. By the time the chestnut forests were gone, there were whole new generations who didn't know anything was missing. 'One of the penalties of an ecological education is that one lives alone in a world of wounds,' Leopold wrote. But in an era when there's talk of a widespread 'nature deficit disorder', how many of us have the expertise to recognize the wounds that are being inflicted? It's easy for someone like me, a city dweller with an untrained eye, to look out over a forest vista – as I did in Patrick County, Virginia – and naïvely be reassured by the rolling waves of green. That took place early in my research for this book, and at the time, I did not yet understand that the scene I was admiring was far from a picture of health. In just one example of the troubles now plaguing the southern Appalachian woods, the oak trees that filled the chestnut's place in the forests are themselves in the midst of a major die-back caused by a complicated disease complex known as oak decline. And as those oaks die, they are being replaced by trees like red maple that have even less value to wildlife. As one forest ecologist told me, 'When you have tree species after tree species disappearing, what worries me is there will still be trees and shrubs and people will think their forests are beautiful. But to those who knew what the forest once looked like, it will look like the ruins of an ancient civilization." (page 224)
From American Chestnut: The Life, Death, and Rebirth of a Perfect Tree by Susan Freinkel
