Hiking the hills behind my sister's Montana house was a balm for body and soul. The strenuous hike worked muscles and bones, heart and lungs, oxygenating cells all through my body and releasing endorphins – the body's message to the brain that all is well. The gnarly pines and wide mountain vistas provided calm for my inner self, and my buddy Nicholai was ever at my side.
Though my focus was elsewhere, I couldn't help but notice something both my Montana sisters have been mentioning for a couple of years – the forest trees are dying.
All around Montana (and all the western mountains from Alaska to Mexico) trees are dying in alarming numbers. While trees have always died – a perfectly normal part of forest life – in the past few decades the numbers have more than doubled, while new growth has stayed the same. That makes a net loss of trees and it is visible to the casual observer in whole hillsides of red, dead ponderosa and lodgepole pines.
The culprit? A tiny black insect called the mountain pine beetle. This critter isn't new, in fact is native to the area. But entomologists who study the bugs have noticed major changes. While the mountain pine beetle used to have a "fly time" of two weeks in July, during which they would leave the tree they had infested, fed on and killed to find a new host, now they are active – not for two weeks, or even two months, but from May through October. Trees at higher altitudes used to be protected by colder temperatures, now the beetles swarm and kill trees even on the mountain tops.
Not surprisingly, from the late 1950's until now (the same time period that has seen dramatic increases in human cancers), Montana forests have seen an 87% increase in tree deaths from the pine beetle. The average temperature has risen more than one degree – the mountain forests have a chronic fever – giving rise to drought and an abnormal number of fires. The forest's immune system is compromised, making more and more trees – the cells of the forest body – vulnerable to pathogens. As I researched this phenomenon, I found out that trees are dying in Siberia, other parts of Russia, France, and Australia.
Symptoms have a purpose. They tell us something is wrong and give us the opportunity to change what we can to re-establish health and balance. The time has come to change.
The canaries are everywhere.
And then there is the Madrone tree I found girdled this morning. Someone, possibly teenagers from the school next door, had pulled off the bark all the way around, and written their names on the smooth underside. So instead of that bark staying where it belongs, feeding a tree, it is rotting in a garbage can, while the tree dies a slow death. The Madrone trees are already declining. I wish I'd thought to take those pieces of bark to the school, where if the miscreants can't be identified, at least a science teacher might use the destroyed tree as an object lesson.
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