Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire

What wiped out the great American Chestnut Tree—human industry or nature itself? The answer might surprise you.

In this episode, Dr. E. Calvin Beisner revisits one of North America’s greatest ecological losses to reveal how the near-extinction of the American Chestnut wasn’t caused by human greed or deforestation, but by a natural fungal blight. He explores how this “Redwood of the East” once shaped American life, and how its disappearance challenges the common environmentalist claim that humanity is always to blame for nature’s tragedies.

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