Why Europe and America’s dying forests could be good news

Germany is losing its forests, FAST. In the central Harz region, over 90 percent of spruce trees are dead or dying because of climate change and insect damage. But this isn’t necessarily bad news. Instead of the former monoculture forest, a more resilient, wild forest is springing up, with a more abundant ecosystem.

#climatechange #barkbeetle #PlanetA

We're destroying our environment at an alarming rate. But it doesn't need to be this way. Our new channel Planet A explores the shift towards an eco-friendly world — and challenges our ideas about what dealing with climate change means. We look at the big and the small: What we can do and how the system needs to change. Every Friday we'll take a truly global look at how to get us out of this mess.

Credits:
Reporter: Kiyo Dörrer Video Editor: Frederik Willmann Camera: Marco Borowski
Supervising Editors: Michael Trobridge, Malte Rohwer-Kahlmann Fact-Check: Alexander Paquet Thumbnail: Em Chabridon

Read more:

Background information on Harz National Park (in English):

Managing bark beetle outbreaks, Policy Brief by Forest Europe:

Chapters:
0:00 Intro
0:38 History of the forests
1:25 Why spruces are everywhere
3:30 Enter: The bark beetle
5:19 Bark beetle central
8:31 The forestry’s approach
12:12 Conclusion

[DWPlanetA]

Have you seen anything similar where you live?

[whateverrandomnumber]

Those are not forests.

Those are monocultures of an invasive species of fast growing, cheap wood.

[CampingforCool]

A pine beetle came through the black hills in south dakota and decimated the pine trees there- which weren't planted by humans but basically a natural monoculture. It was extremely sad to see as I was growing up. But now the dead trees are falling down and being overtaken by new trees. Even though it looked like an apocalypse, it wasn't the end. Nature is able to regenerate itself very well, sometimes better if we lend a hand.

[nathandale]

Compared with tree plantations, old growth forests can have extensive areas with mosses, which have been shown to give an immense boost to the ability of soil to absorb and hold water, among many other benefits.

[lupolinar]

These were plantations, not forests. Even in the 90's it was already talked about, how it may cause trouble in the future.

[mradventurer]

My grandma was from Germany. She always spoke so highly of the German forests. There was nothing like it. But she meant the forests before WW2 i.e. not the evergreen forests.

[Welgeldiguniekalias]

How can there be so many negative comments lamenting the dead trees when you can literally see grass and moss thriving in the same shot? They wouldn't even need to plant any new trees, nature is already reclaiming the land. In fact, the only thing that worries me is they are again planning to plant a bunch of non-native trees, as if nature is wrong and we must correct it.

[mtadams]

I live in New England in the U.S. and our forests are a mix of soft and hardwood. I own a fairly large forest and it’s a mix but it’s mostly oak, birch and maple. I don’t harvest any lumber. I have had multiple lumber companies want to harvest my lumber but I just let it grow. I did harvest some lumber about 30 years ago to build my home. I was very selective who I harvested my lumber. I also harvest some for firewood but I don’t cut healthy trees.

[petterbirgersson]

We have the same problem in south Sweden. The spruce doesn't form natural forests there. The naturally dominant species are broad-leaf like oak, beech and birch. However in the 20th century, the "rational" forestry business planted a lot of monoculture spruce forests for profit reasons. In January of 2005 the storm Gudrun (known as Erwin internationally) destroyed a big portion of the southern Swedish forest. And nowadays we have big troubles with barks beetles.

[aaltag]

tldrtldr: Good news that monoculures are disappearing. Bad news, how they disappear. Oh and the National Park is at fault too because they "protected" the monocultures

TLDR: there have been warnings of impending forest dying due to monocultures since the 1960s - nothing has been done - renaturation and regeneration could have started 50 years ago - now animals will be completely without a habitat for a long time, as the new forest will take decades.


Warnings that man-made monocultures would die out were issued over 60 years ago. In the same way, there were already cost-effective ways of returning the forest to its natural state bit by bit, including natural regeneration. This was not done, and so the forest is now dying everywhere at once. As a result, trees will not dominate the view in the "forest" for a long time. In the Harz Mountains in particular, we will have to be patient before we can marvel at natural mixed beech forests again, since beech is one of the slowest growing trees

[Kfend]

Here in Ireland we have spruce monocultures and no bark beetle (yet) but already other species are being investigated, such as native species like birch, alder and Scots pine. We previously planted lots of native ash but that has been decimated since early 2010s due to ash die back, and native elm by Dutch elm disease! Diversity, breeding programs and better forestry practices will all help but definitely a big challenge.

[stefanmargraf]

Congratulation to the Harz forester, Roland Pietsch, not to fight the beetle! In the Taunus, Hesse, they came with harvesters, eliminated all trees, and damaged the thin soil in large scale. This is desert now.

[nicholaidajuan]

In New Zealand exotic pine has been planted to offset carbon emissions and for the timber industry. These mono-culture plantations have cause extensive flooding where forestry waste has clogged streams and extensive landslides where planted on steep terrain.
This has resulted in pressure to replace the exotic pine with slower growing native trees that have evolved for our climatic conditions. I'm surprised that Germany is trialing a range of exotics instead of planting trees native to the area

[amargamentedoce]

Do you mean forests or man made fields of the same tree?

[nancyhamer]

Most of us will probably not live long enough to see the final results, but this seems to be the best solution so far to repair what humanity has done to the forests.

[moosepasshippie]

The spruce bark beetle has caused a spruce collapse in my area of Alaska. Hemlock, aspen and birch are holding strong. Now I have to just about clear cut my property to remove all the fire fuel. We have had a lot of snow and average rain. Yes, I will replant native white spruce and add a few more hemlock.

[rja]

I live in the southeastern United the pine beetle is hitting us bad. But when they take their place. That is much better for wildlife, lumber, and so on.

[AgiHammerthief]

those weren’t forests, those were tree plantations.

[petera]

Yup first you couldn't recognize the places where you used to play as a kid but now as we started planting a new mix of local trees I'm stoked to see how much better it's going to turn out in a few years.

[HideorEscape]

They could dig swales, turn dead wood into woodchip to use it as mulch to save more water and create massive permaculture fields/gardens on the hills with a lot of biodiversity.

Sadly this is not going to happen cause they just wanna plant another monoculture...