"What's to let go?  What's to hold?"

That's the refrain from a song about the plight of whitebark pine by singer/songwriter Beth McIntosh, who debuted it at an event co-sponsored by NRDC and the Jackson Hole Conservation Alliance last week.

The song was a requiem of sorts for whitebark pine, a heart-wrenching piece written specifically for the event. Beth has a magical presence and a voice that breaks your heart open.  On stage, she appears to embody Mother Earth: wise, strong and wild. 

For me, this was an emotional evening and Beth's song hit hard.  I've been working on whitebark pine for a number of years now, and since 2002 I have witnessed its collapse up close and personal. 

They are magnificent trees. Growing over 1,000 years old, they've witnessed Sheepeater Indians grinding pine seeds at their feet. Growing in high elevations and in the harshest conditions, they have endured everything that Mother Nature has thrown at them-lightning, storms, 100 miles per hour winds. But they may not be able to endure what we have thrown at them- non-native disease and global warming pollution.  In the next 5 to 8 years, these magnificent forests may be ghosts of the past, and the Yellowstone grizzly, which depends on them, will also suffer.

 I was glad that I spoke at the beginning of the program, because after I heard Beth's song, I would not have trusted my voice. 

 As I looked out at the audience of some 250 strong, I saw old friends from my many years of living in Jackson, and a number of agency representatives too-people from the Idaho and Wyoming Fish and Game agencies, the U.S. Forest Service and the National Park Service.  They were friendly faces, for the issues surrounding whitebark pine and its future are not nearly as contentious as those swirling around things with big teeth and big horns.  Agency officials, academics, anyone who explores whitebark forests, fall in love with the tree, and its intricate, complex, almost magical connections with Clark's nutcracker, squirrels, chipmunks, grizzly bears, elk, and even particular mycorrhiza fungi in the soil that, together, make up this high elevation ecosystem-a triumph of survival against the odds.

 Around this tree has grown a community of friends, "whitebark warriors" I call them. Each contributes in his or her own way to understanding whitebark ecology; the dynamics of the disease (blister rust) that is killing it; mountain pine beetle (which is at unprecedented levels in whitebark pine due to warming temperatures); and the consequences of this foundational species' collapse for the Yellowstone ecosystem built around it.  And you need a community, a kind of family, to shore each other up when things get to be too much, when the facts of what is happening to whitebark simply get too depressing. 

 For whitebark is dying so fast it makes your head spin.  And its future depends on turning down the thermostat quickly-and that is a tall order in a society so dependent on fossil fuels. 

 One of the whitebark warriors who spoke at last week's event was climbing guide and author Thomas Turiano.  Thomas spends about 7 months a year in the company of whitebark, on skis or on foot.  He spoke about what it's like to take shelter under a full canopy of whitebark in a howling storm, and what it's like to walk or climb daily among these ancient giants. 

 The love of whitebark pine and the wilderness it represents holds this rag tag community of whitebark warriors together.  The problem is that the community isn't big enough.  Part of the purpose of our event last week was to expand the family.  And to do that, you have to understand why whitebark is important, and how it builds ecosystems and creates the conditions for other trees to grow and for wildlife to flourish.  And why, for the Yellowstone grizzly bear, whitebark pine is a matter of life and death.  (See my previous blog entry for more on this.)

That evening, retired U.S. Forest Service beetle expert Dr. Jesse Logan provided a solid scientific foundation on the whitebark pine ecosystem and explained the unprecedented nature of the mountain pine beetle epidemic.  He also debunked the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's (FWS) claim in its 2007 Yellowstone grizzly delisting decision that only 16% of whitebark had been affected by beetles.  He called the FWS's science "deliberately misleading and dishonest."  He also presented the results of some exciting new work that NRDC produced, in collaboration with EcoFlight pilot Bruce Gordon, GIS whiz Wally MacFarlane and others.  Last summer, our aerial assessment found that there are large holes in the available Forest Service data, and that the beetle outbreak in whitebark pine is far worse than FWS has claimed.

 Isn't the misuse of science to serve political agendas exactly the kind of problem that President Obama promised to fix?  Didn't he call for transparency and sound science in agency decision-making?  His message does not seem to have been heard by certain officials with political agendas here in the Rocky Mountain region.

 After Jesse's talk, it was Doug Peacock's turn to deliver the final punch.  The legendary writer, filmmaker and inspiration for Ed Abbey's George W. Hayduke character in the Monkey Wrench Gang, Doug has spent years in the close company of grizzly bears.  He had attended last month's interagency grizzly meeting, as I did, where it was clear that the agencies are doctrinally opposed to relisting no matter what the facts are.  Calling last year's mortality just a "spike," FWS officials never once admitted that allowable mortality levels had been breached-or that there is a serious problem with whitebark and therefore the future of the Yellowstone bear population.  In the weeks since the meeting, Peacock's outrage had clearly not worn off. 

 He led the charge in asking the audience to sign a petition to the Obama administration requesting that endangered species protections be restored to the Yellowstone grizzly bear.  The first signature on the petition was Terry Tempest Williams, author and passionate lover of all things wild.  About 100 others signed the petition that night.  And, hopefully, this will be the beginning of more pressure to relist the Great Bear.

 For it will take an army-army of lovers of bears and the ecosystems they represent to turn things around.  And, clearly, whitebark pine needs protection too-which is why NRDC filed a petition last December, aimed at providing more resources to monitoring, research and restoration of this imperiled tree. 

 It is sadly ironic that in Yellowstone, a threatened animal depends upon a threatened tree.  We are proud of claiming Yellowstone as one of the last remaining intact ecosystems in the lower 48 states, replete with all the species that were here at the time of the Lewis and Clark expedition.  But will they still be here for our great-great grandchildren?  The intermingled fate of whitebark and grizzlies is in our hands.