How to help protect the brown ash tree used in Wabanaki basketry from the invasive emerald ash borer.

• Cut, buy, or burn only local firewood to avoid carrying beetle-infested wood to new territory. It’s the law.

• Monitor for telltale signs of infestation – extensive woodpecker stripping of trunks, s-shaped larval tunnels in the wood, D-shaped exit holes left by emerging adult beetles – and report them to the Maine Forest Service.

•  If you own land, know if you have brown ash. It is a tall, slender tree, with spongy, dark gray bark that easily rubs off and leaves of lance-shaped leaflets, that grows in moist soil along slopes and stream banks.

•  If your brown ash is healthy, consider contacting a forester or the Maine Forest Service to explore management tactics to keep them alive, producing seeds, for as long as possible. Direct-to-trunk pesticide inoculations are one option.

•  Collect seed pods from healthy brown ash for replanting now, and to preserve genetic diversity for future plantings. The Ash Protection Collaboration Across Wabanakik (APCAW) at the University of Maine has developed a manual to guide people through the process.

•  Consider offering Wabanaki artists access to your brown ash to see if it is basket quality. (Only 1%-2% of brown ash is.) Access permits and cultural use agreements can help keep artists supplied with the ash they need to keep the cultural tradition alive. APCAW is willing to field access offers.