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This particular planting is to show the public basically the progress in the restoration
of the American Chestnut in creating these disease resistant hybrid trees. The American
Chestnut was such an integral part of the native ecosystem before the chestnut blight
hit the US. I feel like a place like a National Park where we are trying to preserve our natural
setting here is very appropriate for us to reintroduce that species that used to be so
vital to the forest here. I think it's going to serve as a great anchor point for education
and outreach for the Chestnut restoration.
When the Chestnut blight hit the US, it was incredibly devastating and I think it happened so long ago that story is overtime being lost.
The goal of our organization is to try to restore this tree back to the landscape, to
whatever extent possible. Planting hardwoods is a difficult thing in the native forest
so its going to be a very slow and long process of getting it back out on the landscape. You
know the end goal is probably a long way away but every little step of progress we get and
every planting we are able to do to reintroduce these things to a new area is a small measure
of success for us. The way we accomplish most of our work is through volunteers and that's
who I primarily work with to manage orchards and our plantings and events like this; almost
all done by volunteers and so not only do I want the public to know the importance of
the Chestnut and the story in what we are doing but let them know they can get involved
and have a serious impact on this effort.