What to do when the spruces die? - The dispute over forest change
D 2022
"We thought climate change was progressing gradually, like a dimmer switch on a floor lamp, but it's actually more like a toggle switch," says Katharina Pietzko, forestry office manager at Thüringenforst. She is currently seeing entire stands of spruce being sacrificed to clear-cutting. Due to drought and bark beetles, the shallow-rooted trees, which need a lot of water, have died in large areas all over Germany. "In 25 years," says Andreas Bolte of the Thünen Institute, "extrapolating the death of spruce, there is a possibility of this tree no longer existing in Germany." Yet spruce is the "bread tree" for the timber industry, processed into roof trusses, bookshelves, wooden pallets, wood chips. The forest, hoped-for saviour in climate change, could now become its victim.
Forests are thus becoming a contested bastion between the timber industry and nature conservation. Forests are supposed to help lower carbon dioxide levels, for one thing. They are supposed to satisfy the ever-increasing hunger for wood. They are supposed to cool the landscape in the coming hot seasons. As renewable energy, they are supposed to relieve the consumption of fossil fuels. And be a habitat for animals and plants, a place of recreation for people. How can the forest do all of this? Ecological and economic demands seem to compete irreconcilably with each other.
To explore this conflict, "Exakt die Story" is on the road with foresters, forest owners and scientists in Thuringia, Saxony-Anhalt and Brandenburg. The forest experts show how forestry works and how management can also harm the forest. They talk about what a near-natural forest is for them and how it can be made strong for the new climate. Their insights into the tree species of the future are a topic, as are the future rewards for forest farmers. They are all engaged in a sometimes very controversial debate in search of a common goal: the right plan for a sustainably healthy forest.
The production "What to do when the spruces die?" was created in collaboration with the author Katharina Beck.
Governments
Katharina Beck
Production
In one media
Technical data
30 min