Germany’s forests are under attack and in an attempt to stave off a catastrophe the army has been called in to help defend the long-suffering trees from ravenous beetles.
After two hot, dry summers, the bark beetle is on the march and foresters and the German army are working against the clock to stall the beetle larvae development before the next generation become adults and take flight.
Each generation of beetles that manages to spread themselves causes the species to multiply by some 40%. In Brandenburg and Saxony’s forests the battle has begun to stop the so-called third generation from swarming out into the woods.
Foresters estimate that forest losses could more than double by the end of this year. Last year, forest fires consumed an area of forest equivalent to 3 300 soccer pitches.
In Saxony alone, the region’s Environment Minister Thomas Schmidt told Reuters TV there was 1.3 million cubic metres worth of damage caused by beetles in 2019, and that is in addition to storm and drought damage.
The degradation of the forests, which are at the heart of Germany’s cultural identity, challenges the country’s image of itself as environmentally conscious and has shocked a public sensitised to the issue by deforestation in the Amazon.
Drought has lowered water tables to the point where even the deep roots of centuries-old trees are unable to reach them. In turn, dryness weakens the defence mechanisms that protect trees from the burrowing bark-beetle.
In a forest in Augustusburg in Saxony in eastern Germany, soldiers are working on mitigating the damage already done, felling trees that have been infested with beetles so that the wood can be salvaged.
“We’re dealing with a plague that according to the Saxony government is the most serious we’ve seen,” said Klaus Finck, an army colonel. “Millions of cubic metres of wood are in danger.”
But the salvage operation brings further costs: the sudden glut of wood has driven down prices, pushing an already challenged industry into still deeper crisis.
From the 19th century romantics who saw the German nation’s origins in the tribes who crushed Rome’s legions in the Teutoberg forest two millennia ago to the fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm, forests have been a staple of German identity: In a country of 80 million, over 2 million people own woodland.
That makes for a large constituency of forest owners for whom the funding offered up by the environment ministry does not go nearly far enough. On Wednesday, the Forest Owners’ Association demanded 2.3 billion euros in immediate aid to speed wood clearance and for owners to be granted carbon credits in exchange for the gas they sequester.
After a second summer in which all-time heat records were set, fears over climate change are rising and experts warn that more is at stake than preserving landscapes beloved of 19th century poets.
