goodbye to the whitebark pine

"...whitebark pine is nearly gone from our northern landscapes, in most places reduced to lingering ghosts in the form of gaunt skeletal snags or scattered seedlings doomed to die. Several factors have contributed to this demise, but all can be traced back to people, whether the choice of a few to introduce white pines from Europe contaminated with a fungal disease that would eventually wreak havoc with all our five-needled pines, of which whitebark pine is one, to choices by multitudes to live carbon-intensive lives manifesting in an over-heated greenhouse world. In fact, whitebark pine is a poster child for the unintended consequences of human driven global change."

-- David Mattson

the-late-great-whitebark-pine