New England’s Forests Are Sick. They Need More Tree Doctors.

Many trees are also stressed by bouts of drought or intense rain, by rising temperatures and changing season length, by extreme weather — by all the various manifestations of climate change — as well as by air pollution and by invasive plants choking or displacing them. The list of threats is long, synergistic, and growing rapidly, which means that trees do not have sufficient time to recover and adapt.

Even a quick tour of a New England-picturesque town common can reveal a lot about the deteriorating condition of the region’s trees. On a morning in late summer, the LeVangies inspected several trees in Petersham, where, since 2014, Melissa LeVangie has been warden — a position every municipality in Massachusetts has been required to have since 1899. When she can’t make it, her twin checks on the trees. Bear LeVangie works for Eversource, traveling a circuit of 35 towns in Connecticut, overseeing trimming and pruning crews and looking for “hazard trees,” including those that are dead or dying.

The two spent a long time with a maple they estimated was about 150 years old. It had two species of decay fungi blooming on its trunk, but Melissa LeVangie had decided to not cut it down. “What I am doing is allowing it to have a slow death and have it be part of our community for as long as it can,” she said.

“It is important to cherish trees, even in their decline. They are our elders,” Bear LeVangie said.

They visited an ash being treated for emerald ash borer, an invasive insect that has killed tens of millions of trees, according to the United States Department of Agriculture. Bear LeVangie flipped over a leaf. More trouble: tussock moth larvae and two other pests.

They visited an oak that had put on scant growth this season, likely because of the drought. Now over four months long, the drought has led to increased wildland fire risk across the state.

And they visited a young maple with red and yellow leaves. “People look at that and say ‘Oh look, fall is coming early, it is going to be a colorful fall!’ No. This is happening early because the trees are very stressed out,” said Bear LeVangie.