In this issue's tour of far-flung destinations, you can observe dramatic changes unfolding in real time. In our cover story, contributing editor Bruce Barcott explores Kotzebue, Alaska, and its environs, which border the Chukchi Sea, north of the Arctic Circle. Change has come with alarming speed for all the residents of the Arctic -- from microscopic algae to polar bears and humans -- because all depend on the integrity of sea ice, which is rapidly diminishing. From scientists, Inuit elders, and local officials, Barcott learns firsthand how the shifting climate is triggering a cascade of effects within one of the world's most delicate food webs. As one biologist tells him, “What we're doing with climate change is carrying out a long-term scientific experiment at continental scale.” Precisely understanding the early results of this unintentional experiment may be our best hope of altering its ultimate outcome.

Our executive editor, George Black, examines change from a different perspective -- a couple of thousand feet above the Yellowstone ecosystem, which he surveys from a Cessna 210 piloted by the intrepid activist and conservationist Bruce Gordon. The whitebark pine forests of Montana and Wyoming, whose energy-rich nuts provide a crucial food source to grizzly bears, are disappearing with almost incomprehensible speed as the mountain pine beetle climbs to ever higher elevations in response to a warming climate. Gordon's flying skills, coupled with advanced mapping technologies, have allowed scientists to accurately assess the extent of this damage for the first time. Similarly, his aerial surveys of the natural gas drilling rigs and infrastructure metastasizing across the Wyoming wilderness will arm local advocates with the data they need to protect this unique landscape before it's too late.

Contributing editor David Gessner takes us on another journey, this time by boat through the bayous of Louisiana, where he observes changes that have been unfolding over decades. The massive reengineering of  the Mississippi River has deprived the once-lush delta of the river's sediments and nutrients. Crisscrossed by man-made canals, these diminished wetlands have left the entire landscape vulnerable not only to exploding oil rigs but also to Mother Nature's hurricanes and floods. Gessner's river guide, the local outfitter and unlikely activist Ryan Lambert, contemplates how to undo the damage -- starting with the Mississippi's restoration -- while Gessner reflects on an equally necessary change in our outlook.

Our senior editor, Laura Wright, explores mysteries closer at hand: near her childhood home in upstate New York and outside the window of her Brooklyn home, distinctly different landscapes, each of which offers revelations and inspiration. On a bird-watching trip, she and her mother pause in yards and clearings, near parking lots, and beside steel bridges, to count goldfinches, nuthatches, and cardinals in a grand, if patchwork, ecosystem. Ecosystem may be a somewhat bloodless scientific term, but it is one that comes to resplendent life in the hands of our authors, who examine the fabric of life one gossamer thread at a time. If truth-seeking and love of place are sufficient to save these irreplaceable landscapes, then there is abundant evidence for such hope of salvation in our current issue.