Since he began lollygagging in the woods and picnicking on octopus, Ito’s shoulders seemed to be unclenching by the minute. They’ve even coined a term, karoshi, meaning death by overwork. The Japanese would make great Boy Scouts, which is probably why they make such fervent office workers, logging longer hours than almost anyone else in the developed world. Like many Japanese day hikers, he was carrying an inordinate amount of gear, much of it dangling from his belt: a cell phone, a camera, a water bottle, and a set of keys. Most of us were urban desk jockeys, including Tokyo businessman Ito Tatsuya, 41, standing next to me. Elfin, with noticeably large ears, he told us to breathe in for a count of seven, hold for five, release. Kunio could have been one of the seven dwarves. We looked like earthlings transfixed by the light of the beamship. “This way they are able to become relaxed.” To help us along, Kunio-a volunteer ranger-had us standing still on a hillside, facing the creek, with our arms at our sides. “People come out from the city and literally shower in the greenery,” our guide Kunio explained. The study calls for annual surveys to provide advance notice of beetle attacks, as well as public education programs and the posting of interpretive signs.The Nature Cure Looking at pictures of nature can be enough to make you feel better. Proposals to control the bugs have included the sublime and the controversial. “But it’s time to consider taking action to protect these trees.” “Do I think this is a death knell for bristlecone pines elsewhere? Well, maybe not,” Millar said. The study found that bristlecone mortality at Telescope Peak and in the Wah Wah Forest in southern Utah was probably due to a combination of warming temperatures, declining precipitation, reduced tree defenses, and bark beetle attacks that originated in nearby limber and pinyon pines during a period of severe drought that began in 2013. In an interview, Millar recalled what she described as “a sense of shock when I first came upon hundreds of bristlecones killed by bark beetles on the highest slopes of Telescope Peak in Death Valley.” But in hot, drought-stricken mixed forests, bark beetles first land on nearby limber and pinion pines, generating new broods that can attack bristlecones, overwhelming their defense systems. Solitary bristlecones deal with the beetles by drowning them in sap, the study says. “I have to go check it out.”Ĭlimate & Environment Air quality worsens as drought forces California growers to burn abandoned cropsĪs San Joaquin Valley growers set fire to uprooted vineyards and orchards amid the worsening drought, residents complain of increased air pollution. It had just begun to emerge on the bright green needles of a bristlecone crouched on a steep slope in the distance. “We’re lucky - there’s no sign of the beetles in these trees,” MacKenzie told a companion with a smile.īut minutes later, as he made his way along the path, he noticed a telltale color of arboreal stress: red. On a recent morning, MacKenzie, 74, wanted to confirm that the culturally significant Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest, home to Methuselah, a 4,853-year-old specimen some say is the oldest living tree on Earth, remained free of the insects. Many more have been killed in high-altitude bristlecone forests scattered across southern Utah. Since 2013, thousands of the trees that ranged in age from 144 to 1,612 years have been killed on Telescope Peak - the site of Death Valley National Park’s lone population of bristlecones - the study says. Climate & Environment Drought, wildfire and commerce prompt massive forest thinning plan for Big Bear Lakeįederal officials have proposed a massive forest thinning project north of Big Bear Lake, citing drought and the threat of wildfire.
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