MENOMINEE RESERVATION – For years, the famed tribal foresters of the Menominee Tribe thought they might succeed where all others had failed.

The emerald ash borer, first detected near Detroit in 2002, had spread to surrounding states, like the insect equivalent of a wildfire.

By 2010, millions of trees — white ash, green ash, blue ash — had succumbed. The invasive beetles from Asia would burrow through bark, the females laying eggs in crevices. Their larvae would tunnel in, feeding underneath the bark, destroying the circulatory systems of trees.

By 2017, several U.S. ash species were on the critically endangered list, one step away from extinction.

Still, the Menominee held out hope.

For more than 150 years, the tribe's forest in northeast Wisconsin has been an environmental jewel, a

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