Germany is losing its forests—and fast. According to German-based DW, the country’s central Harz region has seen more than 90% of spruce trees lay dead or dying due to the impacts of climate change and the dreaded Bark Beetle.
According to the latest government report on Germany’s woodlands, conifer forests are deteriorating due to droughts, storms, and invasive pests. It’s similar in Poland, the Czech Republic, and Scandinavia. However, some see this loss as a net positive for the climate in the long term.
To understand why forest loss could help, it’s important to rewind to the Second World War. After Germany’s defeat, the Allied forces ordered the country to pay reparations—partly in the form of timber. According to some estimates, as much as 10% of all the country’s forests were cut down to meet demand.
Germany planted Spruce to pay war reparations.
To compensate for this, German foresters planted large amounts of one specific tree: spruce. That’s because spruce trees grow fast and straight, which makes them ideal for timber production and construction. To this day, most of these forests are used to produce timber products, with forestry now representing 1 to 2% of the country’s GDP. However, these monoculture forests are less hospitable to other plants and animals and are significantly less biodiverse than mixed ones.
As with all monocultures, spruces are very susceptible to climate change-linked stresses like drought. The recent droughts in many parts of the world have been especially hard on spruces. They are often planted at lower, drier elevations than they would grow naturally, and their root systems are also shallow, meaning they can’t access water reservoirs deeper underground.
Spruce is perfect for Barke Beetles.
While this is devastating for the spruces, one species loves these conditions: the bark beetle. The tiny insect is only a few millimetres long, but it’s steadily been munching its way through much of Germany’s and Europe’s forests.
“A pair can produce up to 100,000 descendants in a year. They spread like wildfire,” according to Fanny Hurtig, a central German Thuringian Forest forester, who spoke to DW. The eastern state of Thuringia, three hours south of the Harz National Park, is one of the regions where the insect is spreading faster than anywhere else in the world.
Whilst a healthy tree usually produces resin to seal holes and protect itself from beetles – thirsty, weak trees cannot do this. The beetles eat away at the layers that transport nutrients and water around the spruces, which then die from thirst and malnutrition.
In Harz, drought and infestation have killed about 90% of the spruce population. Because of its large concentration of tree species, it’s the hardest-hit region in Europe.
But Pietsch — and many others — don’t see these swaths of dead trees as a disaster: “When I came here 2 1/2 years ago, much of this still looked dead. It takes two or three years, but things come back to life. The forest that belongs here is coming.”
The Harz National Park decided to let nature take its course — and did not fight the bark beetle. And nature is doing its thing. Upon closer inspection, shrubs and young trees spring up at the base of towering dead spruces.
Birch and Willow are replacing Spruce in mixed-forests
The first to take root were pioneer tree species like the birch or willow, whose seeds are spread widely and quickly by the wind or birds. But the forest still needs a little help, and formerly native species like beech are being reintroduced.
Dead spruce trees still play a role. They act as insects’ habitat, providing shade and keeping moisture locked in. Fungi help decompose the wood and add nutrients back into the soil. “When you see what kind of strength, how much life there is in it, it’s beautiful,” said Pietsch.
However, dead spruce trees also release CO2 while decaying, meaning these forests store less CO2 overall than healthy ones. The hope is that the carbon-storage capacity of new trees growing in the Harz will compensate in the long term.
But that’s just one part of the story. The national park is a protected area that is no longer used to produce timber. But just 3% of Germany’s forests are protected. Public or private foresters use the rest to produce timber, for example—an industry projected to grow as the demand for sustainable building materials increases.
In Thuringia, foresters like Hurtig are forced to harvest vast numbers of trees before they reach maturity. As soon as the spruces are infested, they are cut down to halt the spread of the bark beetle.
Hurtig said that falling so many trees prematurely hurts: “My heart aches every day when I see this,” she told DW. Still, foresters like Hurtig see it as an opportunity to create a more sustainable mixed forest with a variety of trees and to prevent future die-offs.
“It’s also a chance to build up these areas in a more structured way and with completely different tree species,” said Hurtig, describing what is happening in the Thuringian Forest, which is used commercially.
France, the Czech Republic and Belgium are also looking at mixed-use forests
The new species will have to survive with little water, ideally have deeper root systems to outlast more droughts and storms and cannot be too susceptible to pests. Native trees like beech, oak sycamores, and the North American Douglas fir, are tipped as good candidates. However, if climate change accelerates, trees from much warmer habitats, such as the Turkish fir or the Oriental beech, could also be introduced.
More German commercial forests and national parks are moving to create mixed forests that get closer to native ecosystems but are also resilient to pests and a warmer climate. Bodies like Forest Europe, which aims to protect the continent’s woodlands, advise other countries with similar problems, such as France, the Czech Republic, or Belgium, to do the same.
Seeing the full benefits of forest restructuring will take time, but “it’s good from the perspective of the climate crisis, and it’s good for resiliency as well as biodiversity,” said Pietsch.