Tiny bark beetles have been causing havoc in Germany's Harz mountains, eating away at trees and killing off swaths of the spruce population. Drought — made longer and more intense by climate change — is making the problem even worse.
And even though the beetles tend to target weakened trees, in dry years the population can reproduce so much “that the beetles were even able to attack healthy spruce in large numbers,” he said. “In some regions there are now no more spruces.
” Experts say there’s no easy solution, but forest managers work to remove trees that might be susceptible to beetles as early as possible and use pesticides where they’re needed. Spruce bark beetles lie in a trap during bark beetle monitoring by employees of Lower-Saxony state forests, in a forest of the Harz mountains near Clausthal-Zellerfeld, Germany, Thursday, July 27, 2023. A car passes dead trees in Lower-Saxony state forests at the Harz mountains near Clausthal-Zellerfeld, Germany, Friday, July 28, 2023. Michael Müller, the Chair of Forest Protection at the Technical University in Dresden, said there are “very strict requirements for the use of pesticides” which can be very effective in getting rid of the bugs, although the chemicals are sometimes frowned upon for their potentially harmful environmental side effects. “It’s of course preferable to take the raw wood out of the forest and send it for recycling or to store it in non-endangered areas outside the forest,” he said, but noted that requires a separate logistical operation. On trees that are still standing, he said, it’s not really possible to remove the beetles. Müller added that forest conservation measures can “sometimes take decades from being implemented to taking effect” and other factors, like storms and drought, and other species, such as game and mice that can also hamper plant growth, are potentially more damaging to the forest in the long run than the bark beetle. Dead trees stand in Lower-Saxony state forests at the Harz mountains near Clausthal-Zellerfeld, Germany, Thursday, July 27, 2023. Media officer Michael Rudolph shows burrows created by bark beetles at the inner side of bark pulled from an infested spruce tree in a forest in Lower-Saxony state forests at the Harz mountains near Clausthal-Zellerfeld, Germany, Thursday, July 27, 2023. Forest contractor Heiner Schulte removes a felled tree infested with bark beetles in a forest of Lower-Saxony state forests at the Harz mountains near Clausthal-Zellerfeld, Germany, Thursday, July 27, 2023. Spruce trees felled due to infestation by spruce bark beetles lie in the Lower-Saxony state forests at the Harz mountains near Clausthal-Zellerfeld, Germany, Thursday, July 27, 2023. But he said that conservation efforts are limited by external factors, like the changing climate. “After all, we can’t irrigate the forests,” he said. In the longer term, mixing other tree species into the forest could be a solution, Ahrenhold said. “It makes sense to plant other conifers that can cope better with these conditions, especially on south-facing slopes and on very dry soil,” he said. Having too many spruce trees in the Harz is a result of centuries of planting big concentrations of the tree, according to Richard Hölzl, an environmental historian at the University of Goettingen and at Five Continents Museum in Munich. “Clausthal-Zellerfeld is one prime example of a mining area in the Harz where they very early on tried to establish artificial reproduction for spruce to have it for mining construction works,” said Hölzl. Dead trees stand in Lower-Saxony state forests at the Harz mountains near Clausthal-Zellerfeld, Germany, Friday, July 28, 2023. Officials realized by the 19th century that planting just one type of tree over and over again wasn’t a good idea ecologically, but “the economy countered that realization because spruce was such an attractive species,” he said. Spruce was the preferred tree for industrial forestry, paper mills and pulp. Still, without the warmer and drier weather from climate change, the bark beetles wouldn’t be flourishing in all that spruce. “There is a long, long prehistory, but there’s also the change now,” said Hölzl. “We can’t really blame our forefathers for that.” Marion Petrik, a forest ranger of Lower-Saxony state forests, checks a trap used to monitor European spruce bark beetles in a forest at the Harz mountains near Clausthal-Zellerfeld, Germany, Thursday, July 27, 2023. Dead trees stand in Lower-Saxony state forests at the Harz mountains near Clausthal-Zellerfeld, Germany, Friday, July 28, 2023. Spruce trees felled due to infestation by spruce bark beetles lie in the Lower-Saxony state forests at the Harz mountains near Clausthal-Zellerfeld, Germany, Thursday, July 27, 2023. Spruce trees felled due to infestation by spruce bark beetles lie in the Lower-Saxony state forests at the Harz mountains near Clausthal-Zellerfeld, Germany, Thursday, July 27, 2023. Associated Press climate and environmental coverage receives support from several private foundations. See more about AP’s climate initiativeThe Associated Press is an independent global news organization dedicated to factual reporting. Founded in 1846, AP today remains the most trusted source of fast, accurate, unbiased news in all formats and the essential provider of the technology and services vital to the news business. More than half the world’s population sees AP journalism every day.
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