Control of Douglas fir beetles by woodborer beetles

Wildfires and bark beetles have interacted for centuries—and even millennia—to shape diverse and resilient forest ecosystems. However, the record-breaking wildfires of recent years in western North America have raised concerns that the vast areas of damaged and dead trees—essentially easily exploitable resources—might promote the growth of insect populations.

The Douglas-fir beetle, the primary mortality agent of Douglas-fir trees, often experiences population increases following wildfires. The same applies to many other phloem-feeding insects, such as various woodboring beetles, which are attracted to burned areas and colonize fire-injured trees.

In a recent study, Canadian researchers investigated the interactions between Douglas-fir beetles and woodboring beetles that exploit the phloem of fire-injured trees. More specifically, their hypothesis was that the rapid colonization of bark beetle niches by woodborers following wildfires might restrict Douglas-fir beetle population growth through interspecific competition beneath the bark.

The hypothesis was tested in three mature Douglas-fir forests in British Columbia that burned in 2017. The researchers found that both Douglas-fir beetles and woodborers preferentially colonized mature stands containing large-diameter trees with moderate fire damage.

When woodborers were absent, the Douglas-fir beetle’s reproductive rate was sufficient to cause a local population outbreak. In contrast, in stands where woodborers were abundant (more than 50% of trees infested), Douglas-fir beetles were unable to reproduce at outbreak levels.

These results indicate that competition from woodboring beetles can significantly limit Douglas-fir beetle outbreaks in fire-injured forests. From a forest management perspective, this suggests that forests should be managed in ways that support the success of economically harmless phloem-feeding insects—such as many woodboring beetle species—since their presence may help reduce the risk of bark beetle outbreaks following wildfires.

Previous thoughts on the same topic:
The EU Needs Innovations That Drive Climate Neutrality
Forests in Indonesia and Finland
Why are boreal forest fires on the rise everywhere but in Finland?

Misleading Claims About European Forests

Finnish forestry professor Annika Kangas wrote in a column for a forestry magazine about two eye-opening cases, neither of which brings credit to research in the field.

According to her, an international research group in 2020 claimed (in this publication), based on satellite image analysis, that the area of forest logging in Europe had increased significantly. In Finland, the increase was allegedly 54 percent, and in Sweden, 36 percent. Furthermore, the biomass removed was estimated to have increased by up to 69 percent.

However, statistics from the same period indicated that the average logging area in Finland had only increased by 7.6 percent between 2016 and 2018 compared to the years 2011–2015, and the volume removed had increased by 13.8 percent. In Sweden, logging had even decreased.

When this data was compared in detail with official forest inventory data from Finland and Sweden, it became evident that advancements in remote sensing technology had significantly improved the probability of detecting logging during the observed period. The large increase in biomass removal, on the other hand, stemmed from a misinterpretation: the assumption that biomass is entirely removed in thinnings—an incorrect assumption.

The analysis relied on readily available global datasets that describe changes in forest canopy cover over time. However, these datasets do not allow for distinguishing between natural disturbances, thinnings, clear-cuttings, or even permanent deforestation.

This was information that the researchers who published these erroneous results should have been aware of. Or at the very least, they and other researchers working with remote sensing data should know by now; yet these same time series continue to be used in other studies, such as those modeling the impact of logging on certain bird species, for which they are entirely unsuitable.

Then, last summer, another claim was introduced (I could not identify the original report Kangas was referring to), asserting that the area of forests with trees at least 15 meters tall had significantly decreased in Europe. The largest decrease—about 20 percent—was again said to have occurred in Finland and Sweden.

This, however, is untrue. According to extensive field measurements, the area of such forests had actually increased during the observed period—by 25 percent in Sweden and by 35 percent in Finland. No explanation has been found for these errors, but they share a common feature with the earlier study: they rely solely on remote sensing. Field measurements were not conducted, nor were the remote sensing results validated on the ground.

This highlights the intense competition for research funding, which demands the production and rapid publication of new findings in large quantities. This competition often leads to the hasty adoption of new, modern methods, without first establishing whether these methods are truly suitable for the intended purpose.

In the worst cases, this rush can result in disasters like those described above, which may—even after corrections have been made—leave the general public and policymakers with an incorrect impression. For example, I have repeatedly encountered claims on social media suggesting that large trees are declining in Finland—a misconception likely fueled by the second study discussed here and the associated reporting before corrections were made.

Previous thoughts on the same topic:
The Finnish forest is life-threatening to asylum-seekers
Why are boreal forest fires on the rise everywhere but in Finland?
A new justification is needed for environmental activists

Forests in Indonesia and Finland

According to a new research paper, Indonesia has lost one quarter of its old-growth forest since 1990, with its intact forest area (natural forest undisturbed by human activity) declining by 45%. Nearly half of Indonesia’s deforested land had no detectable land use five years after clearing.

This was caused by fires, long assumed to be Indonesia’s principal idle land driver, and by deliberate mechanical clearing, an understudied phenomenon despite its large deforestation footprint. When idle areas were converted to productive uses, the majority were planted with oil palms, which covered 28% of Indonesia’s deforested land by 2020.

Oil palms were the only major land use for which lagged conversion was the norm; other major drivers such as smallholder agriculture were typically established immediately after clearing.

This can be compared to boreal forestry in Finland, where practically all clear-cut forests are regenerated within a couple of years—mostly within one year—using local tree species selected based on their soil requirements. Forest fires do occur but are quickly extinguished, so the burned areas very rarely exceed one hundred hectares. Even then, they are regenerated very soon.

The amount of wood in Finnish forests has increased continuously since the 1960s, despite the country’s strong forest industry, which contributes almost one-fifth of its export value. At the same time, the area of protected forests has increased year after year, and there are currently 73 old-growth forest reserves established on state-owned lands.

The lesson to be learned is that forests can be used efficiently in two ways: sustainably or destructively. But what should we do to make the first option so attractive that it would be practiced everywhere?

Previous thoughts on the same topic:
Defense Minister Prabowo Subianto aligned Indonesia on the wrong side of world history
A new justification is needed for environmental activists
They want to wipe out from Finland what is good for Africa

A new justification is needed for environmental activists

Biodiversity crisis is one of the big environmental issues today. Although the problem is worst in the low latitudes, the topic is intensively discussed also in the European Union, which is in a process of preparing a stringent legislation to save the environment. 

In its current form EU biodiversity strategy would have serious effects on the Nordic forestry, which in Finland gives work to almost 100 000 people, and forms the basis of almost 20 percent of the export value. Despite these economic facts, a considerably higher amount of wood is growing in the Finnish forests now than was hundred years ago.   

One of the keystone species for biodiversity in North-European forests is bilberry. It is a valuable berry that many people are picking in forests, but it also is an extremely important source of food for many wild animals, especially birds - but also the king of the forests, bear. 

The environmentalists have for decades claimed that current forestry practices are reducing the amount of bilberries, and through food chain many other animals (example). The scientific basis supporting their claim are old investigations that showed bilberry area to have reduced between years 1950 and 1995. 

Now a new investigation is ongoing and its first results show that the forest area covered by bilberries has not reduced since 1995, but in contrast it has increased. Therefore the bilberry does not suffer from Nordic forestry, which has intensified between all those years, but may even have benefited on its current practices. 

Neither will many birds suffer from the lack of bilberries, but their reducing numbers result from some other causes. And those may or may not be related to forestry.  

In my opinion this little example demonstrates extremely well the problem typical to fanatic single topic movements. They have decided beforehand - based on their ideology - what is the problem they are opposing, and thereafter they search for evidence supporting their view from wherever that can be found. 

Therefore I do not expect truth about bilberries in Finland to change the opinions of environmental organisations towards commercial forestry. Instead, they will find other issues that seem to support their ideology. And use them against economic activities, that they have decided to oppose. That is, the Nordic forestry.

Previous thoughts on the same topic:
A popular hobby risks ecological balance, private property and human health in Finland
They want to wipe out from Finland what is good for Africa
Climate change raises dishonesty in the Finnish media

A popular hobby risks ecological balance, private property and human health in Finland

Ticks carry bacteria and viruses with them. The bacteria are causing Lyme borreliosis, which is a serious disease but can be treated with antibiotics. In contrast, some viruses may cause Tick-borne encephalitis (TBE), which is a serious tick-borne disease in Europe that can only be avoided by vaccinations.

Today it was informed that the number of TBE cases has increased considerably in Sweden and Finland due to the climatic change and and COVID-19 pandemic, the latter of which has brought people for outdoor activities. At least in Finland one of the main causes was not mentioned. That is the dramatically increased number of white-tailed and also roe deer, both of which act as hosts to ticks, and therefore enable higher population sizes of disease causing agents.

Deer populations also cause major damage to young forests by eating hardwoods and pines, which result in direct losses to forest owners as well as directs forest owners to plant spruces, which in Central Europe have been attacked seriously by beetles, and the same has been predicted to happen also in Nordic countries if the climates continue warming as predicted.

Hunting is, however, a popular hobby in Finland, and people involved are bringing huge amounts of food to the deer in wintertime, which increases considerably their population sizes. That maximizes the amount of animals for hunting but also their effect on the spread of tick-borne diseases and forest damages. 

For anyone looking from the side, it should be imperative to end the feeding of deer due to the vast problems they cause. And the common sense says, that white tailed deer should be removed from the country due to its nature as an alien invasive species. It simply is not sustainable to jeopardize ecological balance with an aggressively reproducing alien animal, put the health of lay people at risk nor damage their properties because of a hobby - no matter how enjoyable that may be.

Previous thoughts on the same topic:
World oceans are filled with previously unknown viruses

They want to wipe out from Finland what is good for Africa

The chairman of the Finnish Social Democratic Party Antti Rinne would like to reduce forest cuttings in Finland, because he thinks that "we are cutting too much in relation to the carbon sink". Also the Green party would like to reduce cuttings in our forests during the next four years electoral term and even the Left Alliance is along the same lines.

At the same time, the Finnish Broadcasting company Yle made a very positive story on the thoughts of Andrew Collins who is the CEO of Miro Foresty, which is producing lumber and charcoal in West African countries Ghana and Sierra Leone. According to Yle he has said that professional forestry is the only solution in this situation in a similar way as agriculture is the only solution for food production. And also that we cannot cut natural forests forever, but we need to grow trees for the increasing demand.

Collins mentioned also that e.g. access to forest plantations is less demanding and therefore it is easier to organize their cuttings. Furthermore, the logs are of the same tree species and therefore their economic use is easier.

The views of Collins are based on the loss of African forests due to the uncontrollable population growth of people. That is, the increasing cuttings of natural forests for the economic and domestic use of growing human population.

After reading the story I was left in thinking about the intellectual honesty of the green-leftist´s ideology. If forests in Finland should be removed from the economic use, then why in the world it would be desirable to increase economic forests in Africa? Is it enough that in Africa there is plenty of former forest land that has been taken to agricultural and other use, and that reforesting would make them a carbon sink for a couple of decades. Or actually less than a decade if fast growing eucalyptus would be planted.

Furthermore, I was left in waiting some of our politicians to notice that in Finland we have forests only because they have produced income to their owners. That is the very reason why forest owners have invested in their forests, which is why the forest growth in Finland (and thus their carbon sink) has increased continuously since 1960´s.

Could it be so that green-reddish people assume those investments to continue if owners will not get any income from their properties? Or do they think that there would really be enough of taxpayers money to pay for all Finnish forest owners for their forest protection at the same time when the reducing amount of wood usage in industry reduces the total yield of taxes?

For those who are not aware, I may tell that it is annually a question of billions of euros when we consider forest owners profits for their lumber and profits of wood processing companies. And even more, if we consider the disappearing jobs from forestry sector, that would increase unemployment and thus further reduce the amount of public capital.

Aiempia ajatuksia samasta aihepiiristä:
Suomen metsäpolitiikka on kohdallaan
Suomalaispuolueet päättivät ilmastonmuutoksen torjuntakeinoista
Maapallon metsäpinta-ala kasvaa vauhdikkaasti

Finnish parties agreed on actions against the climatic change

The political parties agreed on the goals of the Finnish climate policy. Only True Finns were not included, as according to their view the price would be too high to ordinary people and there would be a risk of losing the workplaces in the Finnish industry. 

According to the agreement, Finland aims to have greenhouse gases of EU to be reduced even more than planned thus far. In order to do so, Finland tries to get EU to cut its emissions by at least 55% from the level of 1990 until year 2030. The current target is 40%.

In addition, the parties are willing to make Finland a forerunner of the Union. According to minister Kai Mykkänen (Conservative party) Finnish forests and soils should absorb more carbon than the country releases so, that we will become not only carbon neutral, but even negative. The plan is to start a widescale forestation, reduce peatland emissions and develop carbon absorption in agricultural lands.

The forestation question is interesting - especially the word widescale - taken the fact that Finland already is the most forested country in Europe. There is also a danger that our preserved forests would be extensively attacked by insects - as has happened in British Columbia - and turn to vast carbon sources instead of being sinks as today.

Otherwise the targets seem reasonable or even sensible. Except that a while ago I noticed an article in the Nature Climatic Change stating that the global means to reduce greenhouse gas emissions would increase huger risks of the developing world considerably more than the climatic change alone. But of course, that does not hold for Finland - at least not right now.

In the current position - when the guidelines of the Finnish climate policy have been decided for the next few decades - there are good reasons to hope that the True Finns are nor right on the Finnish industry´s prerequisites for operation, but also all other EU countries will follow - and not only them, but also other countries throughout the globe. And that the opportunities of cleantech will provide new jobs to people released from the old industry, which will inevitably disappear if the planned actions are actualized. 

If not, Finland will face an unforeseen reduction in economy and standard of living. That would be a pity, because - after all - our actions to prevent the climatic warming will have only a minimal global effect provided that our share of global greenhouse gas emission is only slightly above 0.1 percent.

The original though in Finnish:
Suomalaispuolueet päättivät ilmastonmuutoksen torjuntakeinoista

Climate change raises dishonesty in the Finnish media

I am amazed because of the dishonesty linked to the climatic change. And this time I do not think here the changes in temperature databases but discussion related to the prevention of climatic warming.

Last week we received a model example on this dishonesty from a professional journalist Minttu Mikkonen in the biggest newspaper of this country, Helsingin Sanomat, who had interviewed Finnish researchers in the field.

In the middle of her story Mikkonen cited a previous story published in the same newspaper and wrote that "all researchers unanimously agree that forest cuttings and increasing harvesting reduces carbon sink and carbon stock of the Finnish forests. Despite that, many Finnish politicians still say that cuttings could be increased".

Thereafter the journalist cited Mari Pantsar, the Director of the Finnish Innovation Fund Sitra, by allowing the reader to understand that she had commented the claim above by saying "if you need to confront scientific and political world on carbon sinks I - as a docent - do believe in science".

The problem is that the earlier story the journalist had cited did not say that all researchers agree on the claim that increasing cuttings and harvesting would reduce the carbon stock of the Finnish forests. Or it said, but continued as follows: "...for decades forward, if we compare to a situation when they are not increased".

In other words, all Finnish scientists agreed on the fact, that the carbon stock in Finnish forests is not reduced by cuttings and harvesting, but only its growth is reduced for the next few decades. One might imagine that understanding this would not be too difficult even to a journalist, so it is obvious that we have here a case of conscious dishonesty, although I do not understand why. Actually, it is even worse, because the story of the journalist points out Docent Mari Pantsar as the source of the incorrectness.

In this context I would like to inform my respected reader that Nature published recently an article, which shows that forest management in Europe cannot be used efficiently to solve the problem of climatic change, and therefore they should rather be managed for resilience in future climate. This was not mentioned by Mikkonen, although it had been pointed out by Professor Atte Korhola recently in the same newspaper, and therefore it must have been known also by its journalists writing on the same topic.

The story reminded also that "an average Finn produces annually more than ten tons of emissions. In year 2030 each resident of the globe could not produce more than three tons on average".

This is also intellectually dishonest, although the facts would be correct (which I believe, and did not check). This can be understood by putting this to an areal perspective. Based on the figures given by Mikkonen we can calculate - based on our population size and land area - that in Finland we are producing 163 tons of emissions/km², whereas in the whole world the corresponding sustainable figure would be 155 tons/km².

So Finland is not far from sustainability despite the fact that much of our emissions are due to our cold winters, which make warming of houses obligatory, and therefore forces Finns to use more energy than people in south.

The calculation above shows also how important issue, in regard to avoiding climatic change,  is the rapid population growth. That was not, however, mentioned by journalist Mikkonen, but she wrote only about circulation, vegetarism, carbon pricing, German solar energy, Danish wind power, energetic efficacy of Mexican buildings and stopping the loss of Brasilian forests (the last one of which - unlike the European forest management - does have an effect on global warming as pointed out by the Nature paper cited above).

The dishonest of journalist Mikkonen is not unique in the Finnish press. In contrast, it is extremely common on almost all discussions related to the climatic change. Unfortunately I do not understand why.

That is because I have understood that the threat due to climatic warming is so severe, that we should be honest and find functionally working ways to stop it. Misleading the political discussion - as sen in the story of journalist Mikkonen - only hampers attempts to find working solutions. I cannot believe that would be the aim of media, politician or any of the researchers.

The original story in Finnish:
HS:n Minttu Mikkonen tajosi malliesimerkin epärehellisyydestä