I mean surely populations would exist, bit the spatial and cultural significance of the species is gone.

And, for how long do we want to believe that environmental change (including fungus) can be frozen in a specific time moment that should be preserved?

Isn’t all the writing about the American chestnut indicative of some on-going cultural significance?

Wasn’t the blight and panic that wiped them out largely a result of human activity?

I think this is one environmental change that happened VERY fast, in which we see our own hand, and that we believe we might still be able to turn back.

But I sense that you see some down side which I don’t see?

I sympathise with the struggle of losing a major specie, and of course the cultural significance is great and will never fully vanish.

One thing is to protect nature, another to reject somehow inevitable change happening all the time.

A legitimate concern could emerge on discussing whether there is no better plan, because IMHO this plan offered false hopes, and perhaps many such restoration plans provide more hopes than quantitative performance indicators.

> the spatial and cultural significance of the species is gone.

If it's ecologically competitive, it will spread again in the fullness of time, no?

Yain, meaning yes and no, because of shifting baselines and other co-occurring dynamics, perhaps there are other natural and man-made uses already taking place?