For untold thousands of years, ponderosa have fed and sheltered a varied collection of life and offered the gift of a peaceful yet soaring natural beauty.

A profound unraveling is underway in the American Southwest, happening across a thousand-mile arc from Santa Fe, New Mexico, to the central Sierra. In an unprecedented calamity, the most widely distributed, most iconic tree of the region - the beautiful ponderosa pine - is disappearing. So significant is this loss, both visually and ecologically, that it's reasonably fair to say it may be triggering the first post-climate-change landscape in America.