After the long-standing bark beetle calamity in western Canada came to an end a few years ago and we are still stuck with it in Central Europe, the next beetle catastrophe is apparently building up, this time in southern Alaska.<\/p>\n
In Kenai Peninsula, south of the capital, Anchorage the\u00a0local community is drawing up an action plan to harvest spruce trees that have fallen victim to the bark beetle.<\/p>\n
By quickly harvesting the dead trees, the aim is to contain the calamity and save at least a remainder of the actual value of the wood, in order to use this money to rebuild the forests.\u00a0From an European point of view, the story sounds familiar when you look at the past few years.\u00a0In Alaska, there is also a fear of an increased risk of forest fires due to the large amount of dry material.<\/p>\n
Almost 650,000 ha already affected<\/strong><\/p>\n Unlike the Canadian calamity that lasted from the 1990s through the 2010s, there is no time to waste in Alaska.\u00a0While the wood of the lodgepole pine, which is mainly affected in Canada, remained sawable for a long time even when dead, the spruce wood loses value rapidly and after a short time can only be used for energy.\u00a0This fact is also well known in this country.<\/p>\n On the Kenai Peninsula alone, 195,000 acres are infested by the spruce bark beetle, which is the equivalent of almost 80,000 ha. In the whole of central south Alaska, the infested area is estimated at 1.6 million acres, i.e. the equivalent of almost 650,000 ha. That is already more than the forest loss measured since 2018 by the bark beetle in Germany.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" After the long-standing bark beetle calamity in western Canada came to an end a few years ago and we are still stuck with it in Central Europe, the next beetle catastrophe is apparently building up, this time in southern Alaska. … Continue reading