"The clock is ticking for the few healthy ash tree groves still in existence around D.C.
Twenty years ago an invasive pest arrived in the area, hidden away inside a shipment of ash trees headed for a nursery in Maryland. Since then, most of the ash forests in the area have been decimated by the pest, known as the emerald ash borer.
The loss of these trees is having a devastating impact on wetland ecosystems in the region.
“They’re really important ecologically,” says Gabe Popkin, a science writer based in Mount Ranier, Md. “As they die, there’s only a tiny handful of trees that can potentially take their place.”
For more than three years, Popkin and photographer Leslie Brice have been visiting local ash forests in the D.C. region to document the decline of the trees."
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