Driving through Utah’s Fishlake National Forest, you’d never know you just passed through the largest living organism on Earth. No signs. No visitors center. Just what looks like a regular aspen grove.

But Pando—Latin for “I spread”—is actually 47,000 trees connected by one massive root system, all sharing identical DNA. It weighs as much as 40 blue whales and has been growing for at least 16,000 years.

Here’s the problem: this ancient giant that survived ice ages and massive droughts might not survive us. Scientists call it “a town of 50,000 people where everyone is 85 years old”—no young trees to replace the dying ones. And the clock is ticking faster than anyone imagined.

We’ll take you inside the protective fences and across the fragmented landscape to explain why the world’s largest organism is quietly dying—and whether the solutions we’re trying are enough to save it.

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