American Indian Solutions to Environmental Challenges

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  Toggle Favorite The emerald ash borer (EAB) is an invasive insect species from Asia that infects and kills black ash trees. The Akwesasne Task Force on the Environment works with other local, state, and federal organizations to protect healthy ash trees and prevent the spread of EAB infestation. 2007
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  Toggle Favorite Dead and dying branches at the top of a black ash tree signal emerald ash borer infestation, because branches above the infestation are cut off from the supply of nutrients traveling up the tree. 2005
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  Toggle Favorite An emerald ash borer kills an ash tree by eating into its trunk and stealing its nutrients. This slowly strangles the tree by preventing food from traveling past the infected area. Epicormic growth occurs when the tree produces shoots around the infestation to try to get enough food to survive. 2006
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  Toggle Favorite Gallery tracks are tunnel-like paths made by emerald ash borer larvae as they eat their way through the trunk of a black ash tree. Found just under the bark of the tree, these tracks are one of the first signs of EAB infestation forestry experts look for. 2006
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  Toggle Favorite This is a close-up image of an emerald ash borer larva, a young form of the insect, as it eats its way through the cork cambium layer of an ash tree. Once the larvae hatch from their eggs, their constant eating creates long tunnel-like pathways, or gallery tracks, throughout the wood of the tree. 2002
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  Toggle Favorite “When I was a kid, it seemed like, just about, I would say 90% of families on this reserve made baskets. There was just an overharvesting through the years.”
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  Toggle Favorite “The emerald ash borer is going to be the one that is going to devastate our basketmakers here.”
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  Toggle Favorite “Some of the visual clues for a tree that might be infested would be side shoots, epicormic growth. Because what emerald ash borer does is … it basically girdles the tree.”
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  Toggle Favorite “When we first saw it, the USDA estimated that it’d be about 35 years that we would have to worry about it down here. But the bug has moved a lot faster than that.”
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  Toggle Favorite “About four million trees a year are cut to manufacture paper. Well, seven billion trees in this country alone are under a threat by emerald ash borer.”

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