A thousand years ago the world was a very different place. A millennium ago, give or take a hundred years, the future of Europe was fundamentally changed at the Battle of Hastings, when William of Normandy defeated the last English Saxon king. The actual historical Macbeth murdered Duncan, the king of Scotland. The first powerful pope appeared on the scene and the construction of the cathedral in Pisa, Italy started. Here in what would one day be the American West, the Anasazi entered what has been called the Pueblo period, with cliff dwellings being built that survive to this day.

And, in the Rocky Mountain west, a few seeds fell to the ground and quietly took root.

Those seeds, wrapped in the pinecones of their “parent” whitebark pine trees, germinated in the soil of the West’s high mountains, sprouting first into slim saplings and eventually reaching 40 to 60 feet in height and a full 5 feet in diameter. Some of those tiny plants that started life so very long ago are still alive today and remain firmly rooted in our region, as reported in a recent Colorado Politics story, highlighted in one of my favorite CP sections, the Out West Roundup.

These remarkable and aged living things have thrived through centuries of struggle, clinging to life in the cold and breezy mountain country, growing at altitudes as high as 12,000 feet, a place far too challenging for most species. Yet, as some of these trees enter their second millennium of life, they face a very uncertain future. 

The world is getting warmer, and the beetles are coming.

As reported in CP, a non-native fungus – an invasive species – has been attacking the trees for the last 100 years or so. In more recent years, the bark beetles that have plagued Colorado and the West have also attacked the whitebark pines as well. The same climate change problems that enhance beetle kills in vast areas of Colorado – warming winters and fewer hard freezes, for example – are also increasing the peril to the whitebark pines. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is seeking protections for the whitebark pine, although not as aggressively as some environmentalists would like.

Recent research has shown that more than half – let me repeat that – over half of the whitebark pines in the U.S. are now dead. Everything is connected in nature, and the loss of these trees from areas such as the eastern edge of Yellowstone National Park has impacted other species. As it turns out, the whitebark pine is a vital food source for the grizzly bear. The whitebark pine’s seeds are collected by countless squirrels, whose stashes were then raided by the aforementioned grizzlies, who munched away on the seeds within the pinecones. With so many trees gone, so too is gone a vital food source for a top predator in our region.

I have been involved in environmental issues for a number of years. I created the AF Academy’s first course on the impact of environmental issues on politics. My doctorate explored the right and wrong ways to involve military forces against environmental factors, and I am a senior fellow at a couple of D.C.-based think tanks, exploring the nexus between environment and national security. And I am occasionally asked the same question I have been asked many times over the years – what good are (insert species) anyway? What does it matter to me? And I can almost hear some of you, dear readers, wondering why some pine tree really matters in the big picture of things.

I will offer two answers. The first is more, well, practical. We have a great deal to learn from the abbondanza of lifeforms that surround us. For example, many of the most powerful anti-cancer medications come from plants, such as Taxol, which was found in the bark of the Western Yew tree. Hundreds of medications are made from vegetation, with more being discovered every year. It would be quite a pity if the source of a potentially life-saving drug was wiped out before its medicinal value was determined. It is possible, for example, that the cure to the illness that will one day kill you was just bulldozed in a tropical rainforest or killed by climate change on a high Colorado mountain pass.

But beyond the practical and direct use of plants like the whitebark pine I would also argue for the more ethereal and abstract reason to protect such species. I find the world to be a better place when that world contains whitebark pines, grizzly bears, and even the tiny Preble’s Meadow jumping mouse. I have felt a shiver as I touched the branches of a bristlecone pine tree, a tree that lives so long it makes the whitebark pine look like a kid. I have seen bears walk across a mountain road. We are, as a state and as a nation, enriched by the simple fact that such remarkable plants and animals exist. Even if you cannot think of a “practical” value for a species, there is an intrinsic value in their mere existence. And so, my friends, it is worth protecting our flora and fauna for our own practical use and to enrich our lives by simply existing. 

You do not have to be a grizzly bear to understand the value of a whitebark pine. It just is.