Across the Western United States, wildfires fueled by climate change have destroyed more than 33 acres since 2020, according to the National Interagency Fire Center.

With an uncertain future amid rising temperatures and ongoing climate disasters, agencies, volunteers, and businesses are stepping in to protect their beloved forests — by collecting pine cones.

As Brian Kittler, chief program officer for the Resilient Forests program at the nonprofit American Forests, told CBS News, if nothing is done to restore a forest in the wake of a wildfire, the area becomes more vulnerable to future fires.

And thus, a vicious cycle begins.

“There’s basically no live trees, and there’s no natural regeneration happening,” Kittler explained.

“The more that we lose forest, we’re losing our clean air and clean water, our ability to remove carbon from the atmosphere and address climate change.”

So, trained experts like Kittler’s team, as well as everyday nature lovers, go on the hunt for pine cones, hoping to replant trees and stave off future disasters.

In Southern Oregon’s Fremont-Winema National Forest, scavengers armed with burlap sacks, climbing rope, and motorized lifts get to work sourcing seeds.

Once they have a collection of cones, they’re brought to a nursery, where seeds are extracted and grown into seedlings. One million of those will plant about 4,500 acres of new forest, per CBS News.

While this work is vital, experts say the program alone will not restore forests, as dryer, hotter, and more arid conditions sweep the planet. 

Plus, it takes about 20 years for seedlings to grow to maturity. In a race against the climate clock, forests are running out of time — and acreage.

So, pine cone hunters are specifically sourcing seeds from more “drought-tolerant” tree species.

In Oregon, logging companies have been enlisted by the U.S. Forest Service to source these cones — and land ripe for replanting. 

And in Darrington, Washington, folks can collect cones for cash, trading in their finds with the nonprofit Glacier Peak Institute, which works with companies like Silvaseed to reforest the fire-impacted lands.

“We’re collecting the broadest range of genetic diversity possible from the forest,” Kea Woodruff, a general manager at Silvaseed, a tree farm focused on reforestation in Washington, told Fox 13 News. 

“Under whatever future scenarios happen in the landscape, whether it’s climate change, whether that’s disease, whether that’s a new species, new types of biodiversity, we had the seed we’re collecting that captures all that range of diversity so we can put trees back into the landscape in the future,” she added.

For all of these seed sourcers, the future is what it’s all about.

Looking at the seedlings, Kittler told CBS News, he sees “the forests that will be walked through by our children and our children’s children.”

For Woodruff, she knows her community is vital in not just replanting forests, but protecting tree species as a whole.

“One of the things that’s happening in wildfire is it’s burning the seed bank,” Woodruff told Fox 13. 

“Wildfire is essentially destroying the seeds of the future, so that’s why… we need to do something right now — because some of these landscapes, once those forests burn, that seed source is lost forever if we don’t bank it now.”

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Header image courtesy of Apaha Spi/Unsplash