Vogueのインスタグラム(voguemagazine) - 12月21日 02時06分

Joshua Tree National Park is more popular than ever—but its namesake trees are facing extinction. In a 2019 study, ecologist Lynn Sweet suggests that if greenhouse gas emission rates continue “business as usual,” the species’ habitat will shrink by 99.98% by the end of the century, almost completely erasing Joshua trees from the park.

“Climate change is like a flash flood,” Dr. Sweet says. “Joshua trees thrive on the long broad plateaus the park is famous for, but outrunning the wave of warming temperatures of climate change in these valleys is much more difficult than migrating a short distance uphill.”

When Dr. Sweet’s study was published, it sent a quake across the national news cycle as many grappled to understand what the park would look like in 80 years without its namesake tree that has inhabited the wide plains and rocky peaks of the region for over two million years. As a keystone species, countless other plants and animals depend on the Joshua trees for their own survival, including species like yucca moths and desert night lizards. Because of this, the tree's mass disappearance may drastically alter the park’s ecosystem.

At the link in our bio, a closer look at Dr. Sweet's work—plus, the efforts being made to preserve the species. Photographed by @nhmcelroy

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