Huge Forest Dieoffs Across Germany Thanks To Spruce Bark Beetle; Dying Monocultures Mean Loss Of CO2 Uptake
Even the intense green of late spring cannot mask the dead trees in the Harz mountains. Standing upright across the gentle peaks in northern Germany, thousands of skeletal trunks mark the remnants of a once great spruce forest. Since 2018, the region has been ravaged by a tree-killing bark beetle outbreak, made possible by successive droughts and heatwaves. It has transformed a landscape known for its verdant beauty into one dominated by a sickly grey.
The loss has sparked a reckoning with the modern forestry methods pioneered by Germany that often rely on expanses of monoculture plantations. The ferocity of the beetle outbreak means there is no going back to the old way of doing things: replacing the dead spruce with saplings from the same species would probably guarantee catastrophe once again. Instead, foresters have been experimenting with a different approach: pockets of beech, firs and sycamore have been planted around the surviving spruce to make sure the returning forest is more biodiverse. They hope that planting a mixture of species will make the returning landscape more resilient.
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Vast diebacks, such as those seen in the Harz mountains, are becoming increasingly common in Europe as the climate heats, bringing extreme weather and drought. During the peak of the bark beetle outbreak from 2018 to 2021, Germany lost half a million hectares (more than 1.2m acres) of forest – nearly 5% of the country’s total. The Czech Republic has lost even more in relative terms and Norway, Sweden, France and Finland are experiencing changes as Europe’s ecosystems strain under increased heat and drought. New research from the UK indicates that ancient woodland is increasingly struggling to regenerate. Foresters in Greece report huge diebacks of the country’s firs, and peatlands across Europe are drying out.
The consequences are starting to filter through in official statistics. In July, scientists released a significant downwards revision of how much carbon is being removed by land in the EU, driven by the weakening forest carbon sink. Since 2010, the amount absorbed by land has fallen by a third and continues to decline. Figures published in 2024 in Germany show a major spike in emissions between 2017 and 2022 from the bark beetle outbreak and drought, mirroring other member states. The speed of the fall in the amount of carbon removed by Europe’s forests was not expected, say experts, and is already pushing climate targets out of reach.
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https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/jan/08/germany-forests-bark-beetle-spruce-co2-carbon-sink-monoculture-aoe