> But the tiny insects have been causing outsized devastation to the forests in recent years, with officials grappling to get the pests under control before the

> But the tiny insects have been causing outsized devastation to the forests in recent years, with officials grappling to get the pests under control before the spruce population is entirely decimated. Two-thirds of the spruce in the region have already been destroyed, said Alexander Ahrenhold from the Lower Saxony state forestry office, and as human-caused climate change makes the region drier and the trees more favorable homes for the beetles’ larvae, forest conservationists are preparing for the worst. It seems this is not exactly new: > Around 1800, large swathes of the Harz were deforested. The less resistant spruce monoculture, that arose as a consequence of the mining industry in the Upper Harz, was largely destroyed by a bark beetle outbreak and a storm of hurricane proportions in November 1800. This largest known bark beetle infestation in the Harz was known as the Große Wurmtrocknis, and destroyed about 30,000 hectares (74,000 acres) of spruce forest and lasted about for 20 years. The woods were largely reforested with spruce. Continuous problems with bark beetle and storms were the negative side effects of mining in the Harz Mountains. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harz https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harz > 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. The AP article fails to mention the massive amount of deforestation and animal depopulation that's occurred for centuries now, but which is well-documented in the Wikipedia article. This gives the misleading impression that what's happening now is somehow unprecedented. The issue, it seems, is that trying to "manage" the land doesn't work. It may even be more the root of the problem than the solution.