The forestry department in Wyoming has long been struggling with the pine beetle epidemic which has caused many of the forests of southern Wyoming and northern Colorado to be decimated. Today, to help raise awareness for this disaster, the Center for Global Studies is inviting Stefan Kraemer, the Manager of the Forestry Area Edelweiler, to share how they handle forestry in Germany.
In his lecture, Kraemer will discuss the diversity of forests in Germany and how they have handled problems with beetles and logging.
Kraemer is traveling to some of the forests around Laramie such as Medicine Bow national park and Vedauwoo. He has noticed that the forests in Wyoming are very dense and there is little change in the type of trees in our forests. This makes it harder for foresters to detect if a tree has been infested by beetles.
After speaking with Mr. Kraemer on monday about some of the differences in the way Germany handles their forests compared to the way we handle ours, it is concluded that one main difference is that since Germany is a smaller country with a higher population density.
The German forestry department doesn’t have nearly the land to cover, so they are able to respond to beetle epidemics quickly.
The public is more invested in forestry. They have paths and roads that people take to work or school or back home that lead through the forests. There are many manufacturing jobs that the timber industry creates as well.
“When summer time, the first few beetle trees come out, the people start calling us right away,” Kraemer said.
This allows for a quick response from the forestry department to cut down the infested tree and keep the beetles from spreading to others around it.
Kraemer said that the forestry department in Germany has done a lot of work to incorporate multiple species of trees in their forests.
“If one tree dies out we still have the other one. And that’s not natural but that’s what we do with forestry,” Kraemer said.
Mixing more types of trees into the forest will help protect its growth and make it harder for beetles to find a new tree to infest. He noted from his visit that Wyoming forests, especially up in the mountains, are mostly pine and very dense with the food a beetle needs, these factors make it easy for the beetles to spread.
However, this would be hard to do in a state such as Wyoming where the population density is one of the lowest in the country. With so much land to cover and few trails cutting through the thickest parts of the forest, infested pine trees are missed frequently.
Another thing Germany has managed to do to help their forests is promote awareness of the epidemic.
“When summer time, the first few beetle trees come out, the people start calling us right away,” Kraemer said.
This allows for a quick response from the forestry department to cut down the infested tree and keep the beetles from spreading to others around it.
These are some of the steps that will help lead to Wyoming having healthier forests, but it will only work if people are aware that there is an issue here in the first place.
The citizens in Germany, especially in rural counties, count on the forest to provide them with money to feed their families and wood to build their homes. They see the value in protecting the forest.
As citizens of Wyoming we can look after the things that make this state so beautiful, our forests being a great example.
