Ponderosa is the tree that makes the Southwest the Southwest— cinnamon bark, high open groves you can ride a horse through, vanilla smell in the sun. In the last decade, from Santa Fe to the Sierra, more than two hundred million of them have died, and the projection is that under five percent of southwestern ponderosa may be left by mid-century. Ferguson drove New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, and California asking why — climate, drought, beetles, and a century of putting out every fire — and wrote the natural and human history alongside it. It’s short, it’s warm, and he’s writing about a thing he loves while it goes.
The Twilight Forest