Yes—but the finding is localized. A study led by the Bishop Paiute and Big Pine Paiute Tribes found that most monitored pinyon trees appeared healthy, while three areas had high shares of unhealthy trees, including Westgard Pass groves where tribal partners had reported decline. The results support those on-the-ground observations; they do not show that pinyon-juniper woodlands are declining everywhere.
What the study monitored—and where
The study, “Pathways to care in pinyon–juniper woodlands: Insights from Indigenous-led monitoring and a public survey,” was led by Diana S. Macias and published in People and Nature on September 29, 2026 (DOI: 10.1002/pan3.70432). UC Berkeley’s Department of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management published an account of the work on October 2, 2026.
The research focused on pinyon-juniper groves in the Eastern Sierra, where tribal members’ observations helped shape the monitoring. The Bishop Paiute and Big Pine Paiute Tribes led field monitoring, building on a 2018 Tribal Citizen Wunupu (Pinyon Pine Nut Tree) Survey developed with Monty Bengochia and tribal and land managers. The broader Pinyon Community Climate Action Network (PiCCA) brings together tribal nations, federal agencies, nonprofits, and university researchers. It met quarterly from October 2023 through May 2026 to develop research grounded in Indigenous sovereignty.
Community field days included tribal members, Friends of the Inyo volunteers, and Palisade Glacier High School students. Some field days were open to the public; others were limited to tribal members. At groves, monitors estimated tree age from crown and bark, assessed health by the share of brown or dead needles, noted visible stress indicators such as foliage disease or dwarf mistletoe, and estimated cone production by counting green cones over 30 seconds. These were field observations, not laboratory tests.
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What monitors found about tree health and cones
More than 80% of the surveyed trees appeared healthy in the Berkeley account of the monitoring. At the same time, three areas had high proportions of unhealthy trees. Those included Westgard Pass groves where tribal partners had previously reported decline. That overlap is the central confirmation: the monitoring identified localized areas consistent with tribal observations, not a uniform regional die-off.
Across monitored sites in 2024–2025, green-cone counts ranged from zero to 60 per tree. Trees assessed as being in poor condition produced 50% fewer cones than healthy trees, while mature trees produced about 60% more cones than younger trees. These are observed relationships in the monitoring; they do not establish why trees became unhealthy or guarantee a particular cone yield in a future year.
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The findings matter beyond tree condition alone. Pinyon nuts are culturally significant and, in some areas, an important source of income for tribal communities. Lower cone production among trees in poor condition can therefore affect a resource with cultural and practical value, although the study’s reported cone counts are not a measurement of a particular harvest’s size.
What residents knew about the woodlands
The project also examined people’s relationship with the landscape. A household survey covered more than 700 residents across three Eastern Sierra counties; 69% correctly identified pinyon-juniper woodland when shown a photograph. In the report’s analysis, political ideology and respondents’ self-assessed climate knowledge were the strongest predictors of how much environmental care they said they practiced. That is an association, not evidence that either factor caused those behaviors.
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Pinyon-juniper woodlands occupy dry environments and vary in density and species mix. A 2026 UC Berkeley department report estimates that they cover more than 100 million acres on federal lands across ten western states, including more than 3 million acres in California. They provide habitat for animals such as pinyon jays and bobcats, but the study’s field findings concern the monitored Eastern Sierra groves rather than every woodland in that broad range.
What is known about the cause—and what happens next
The study has not established the specific cause of the decline observed in the affected groves. The Berkeley account reports that Inyo National Forest monitoring found fewer than 2,000 dead pinyon pines in 2021 and more than 70,000 in 2022 within the forest; Berkeley attributes those figures to a Forest Service 2022–2023 monitoring report. That reported change underscores the scale of concern in the area, but it does not identify the mechanism behind the deaths or show that the same pattern applies elsewhere.
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Land managers plan follow-up assessments with forest-health specialists to investigate causes and use the monitoring data to inform restoration. The Berkeley account says the Big Pine Paiute Tribe is reforesting land near Westgard Pass that was excavated for satellite arrays used in a university research project a little over a decade earlier. Inyo National Forest and the Bureau of Land Management’s Bishop Field Office also plan restoration work informed by monitoring and further assessment. The sources do not report controlled comparisons of restoration treatments, so they do not establish one intervention as more effective than another.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Why some grove locations are not public
Tribal data sovereignty shapes what the public can see. Each tribal environmental department collects, stores, and controls its own data and decides what to share; Berkeley researchers hold data gathered by other students and community volunteers. Locations shown publicly in the paper are aggregated and shifted so individual groves cannot be pinpointed. That protection means readers should not use the published maps to infer exact grove locations.
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