Once common in the West, whitebark pine is being wiped out by a deadly fungus, ravaging beetles, and climate change. Scientists hope advances in gene sequencing and a recent federal listing as threatened will speed the hunt for trees that can be replanted and seed the future.
The collection was created by the Montana Climate Office at the University of Montana and the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes of the Flathead Reservation.
A groundbreaking digital story collection, “Explore Climate Actions on the CSKT Flathead Reservation,” recently clinched the prestigious Esri Native Nations Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) Award in the 2023 ArcGIS StoryMaps Competition.
Whitebark Pine Restoration Project Receives $44 Million from Inflation Reduction Act ypradio.org - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from ypradio.org Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
The whitebark pine is a hardy tree that grows in an area stretching from British Columbia, Canada south to parts of California and east to Montana. It's a keystone species in its subalpine and timberline ecosystems and plays an outsized role in its interactions with other species and the land feeding and providing habitat for other animals, and providing shade to slow glacial melt to the valleys below. But it's increasingly threatened by more intense fires, by mountain pine beetle infestations and by a deadly fungus called blister rust. Today, producer Berly McCoy takes the microphone to share the ongoing efforts by reforestation forester ShiNaasha Pete and others to save this important species.Check out the Headwaters Podcast: https://glacier.org/headwaters/ Reach the show by emailing shortwave@npr.org.