Stuttgart (dpa / lsw) - According to an estimate by the Forestry Research and Testing Institute (FVA), the bark beetles have caused less damage in the southwest this year than in previous years. "In Baden-Württemberg, the bark beetle infestation numbers continue to decline, only in the south there is still no all-clear," said Markus Kautz from the forest protection department of the FVA, the German Press Agency.
Up to now, Kautz is counting on around one million solid cubic meters of damaged wood for spruce. Almost 2.4 million solid cubic meters were reported in 2019, just over 2 million in 2020 and less than 1.5 million in 2021. Solid meter is a unit of space for one cubic meter of solid wood mass.
The fact that the numbers are declining is cyclical and has to do with the dry and hot years 2018 to 2020 and the mild previous year. According to a spokeswoman for Forst Baden-Württemberg - the authority claims to manage more than 300,000 hectares of state forest - the defenses of the trees improve after the end of extreme weather. As a result, the forest recovers and beetle populations either collapse within a few years or gradually decline.
