cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/4689468

Thanks in part to roughly 100 years of fire suppression on the Great Plains, this drought-tolerant native tree [eastern red cedar] — once primarily confined to river bottoms and rocky outcrops — has crept from the gullies to the grasslands, from the humid East to the arid West from Texas to South Dakota, and is now dismantling what little remains of one of the most endangered ecosystems in the world.