Germany’s dying forests are losing their ability to absorb CO2. Can a new way of planting save them?

Spruce trees killed by bark beetles in the Harz mountains near Schierke. The pest has ravaged German forests since 2018. Photograph: Matthias Schräder/AP

Even the intense green of late spring cannot mask the dead trees in the Harz mountains. Standing upright across the gentle peaks in northern Germany, thousands of skeletal trunks mark the remnants of a once great spruce forest.

Since 2018, the region has been ravaged by a tree-killing bark beetle outbreak, made possible by successive droughts and heatwaves. It has transformed a landscape known for its verdant beauty into one dominated by a sickly grey.