TACF in the News
Media Stories About The American Chestnut Foundation
For more than four decades, The American Chestnut Foundation (TACF) has led the effort to restore the iconic American chestnut tree, uniting advanced scientific research with the strength of a dedicated network of chapters and partners across the eastern United States. This page highlights media coverage showcasing TACF’s pioneering work and enduring commitment to one of the most significant ecological restoration projects of our time.
Newspaper & Magazine Articles
Featured Article
Backpacker magazine
Date: October 22, 2025
Title: Nearly a Century Ago, American Chestnut Trees Died Off. Now, Hikers Can Walk Among Them Again.
Excerpt: “We crunch into the dense forest to find one- and two-foot-wide trunks surrounded by broad patches of understory scattered with the husks of old burs and this year’s ongoing masting. We spend the next hour or so scouring the ground, heeling open the urchinlike orbs and filling a small grocery bag with dark, leathery nuts. For me, the experience is moving—like a glimmer of wild hope amid a conservation landscape dominated by the looming catastrophes-to-come of climate change.” Read here.
For the first time in decades, hikers can walk in forests of mature, wild American chestnuts
Garden and Gun (7/24/2025)
This isn’t a gimmick’: the New Yorkers trying to restore the American chestnut
The Guardian (6/19/2025)
The Problem With Darling 58: The fight to save America’s iconic tree has become a civil war
New York Magazine, Intelligencer (5/27/2024)
Genetic engineering was meant to save chestnut trees. Then there was a mistake.
The Washington Post (12/24/2023)
The American Chestnut Foundation: Restoring a Foundational Eastern Tree Species
The Laurel of Asheville (11/18/2023)
Television
Featured Program
Human Footprint on PBS
Date: July 30, 2025
Title: Vanishing Act (Season 2, Episode 6)
Excerpt: The American Chestnut Foundation is a nonprofit organization dedicated to restoring the American chestnut back to its original range. American chestnuts once numbered in the billions. They sustained wildlife– from deer to turkey, and black bears to passenger pigeons– and they were the foundation for an entire subsistence culture in Appalachia. Watch here.
Vanishing Act
Human Footprint, PBS. Season 2: Episode 6 (7/30/2025)
Working to Bring Back the American Chestnut
WHTM Harrisburg, PA (10/4/2023)
Podcasts & Radio
Featured Episode
From the Forest
Title: The American Chestnut Foundation with Vasiliy Lakoba
Date: July 10, 2025
Excerpt: On this week’s show we’ll be discussing American chestnut with Vasiliy Lakoba from the national organization–The American Chestnut Foundation (TACF). As many of you know, American chestnut has been made “functionally extinct” from the devastating chestnut blight brought in from Asia in the last century. We’ll discuss how TACF plans to bring back the tree as well as their recent parting with SUNY College of Enviornmental Science & Forestry’s transgenic chestnut project as well. Listen here.
The American Chestnut and Fishing Infomercials
Meateater, Episode 752 (10/2025)
American Chestnut – Tragedy and Inspiration
Nature Nuggets, Episode 23 (9/28/2024)
L’émergence de nouvelles maladies, et mieux comprendre les tempêtes solaires
Les années lumière, Radio Canada (8/24/2025)
The American Chestnut Foundation with Vasiliy Lakoba
From the Forest podcast (7/10/2025)
Scientists try to restore American chestnut trees to the northeast
Vermont Edition, Vermont Public Radio (7/9/2025)
Fear and the Chestnut Tree
Common Land, Episode 3 (7/9/2025)
Saving the American Chestnut Tree
Maine Calling, Maine Public Radio (4/26/2024)
After GMO program hits snag, what’s the future of restoring American chestnuts?
Radio IQ (2/27/2024)