The US national park, widely admired for its meadows of alpine asters and purple lupines, is now being overtaken by trees. The National Park Service attributes the change to decreased snowfall due to global warming, which reduces the snowpack needed for open meadow areas. Botanist Dr. Regina Rochefort, a science adviser at the National Park Service who has been studying the process since the early 1990s said, “We are trying to get a better handle on what changes we will see, where we will see the most rapid changes and how we can use that information to help manage parks.”
We thank Dr. Rochefort and National Park Service scientists for sharing this observation of humans’ effect on the balance of nature. May we quickly make more eco-friendly choices to preserve the colorful diversity and beauty of our Earth.