The lost canopy: Ash goes and Hemlocks follows ..

Infected Ash tree waiting to be chopped down

Everywhere in my neighborhood, the Ash trees lie chopped down. So far over 70 million ash trees have been lost in the US and Canada due to the Asian emerald ash borer infestation and many more will go the same way. With a heavy heart, I picked up the bark of an infected Ash tree to show my children.

Just a week later, on a trip to the breathtaking Watkin's Glen in the upstate New York area, I learnt that the majestic Hemlocks ..some that are hundreds of years old, are also being fatally attacked by a pest called the woolly adelgid all the way from Georgia to Massachusetts. Can you imagine Watkin's Glen without the Hemlocks?

So much will be lost for future generations. How much more dreary the world becomes without these trees ..