The fear of the bark beetle and the associated even greater damage in the Tyrolean forests is spreading. In the race against time you also have high expectations of the weather gods. In any case, the work is in full swing.
The flooding at the beginning of this week, which caused enormous damage, made us forget for a moment that thunderstorms in July had already caused incredible damage in the Tyrolean forests. About 600,000 massive cubic meters of damaged wood were found on an area of about 2,000 hectares (which roughly corresponds to the size of 290 medium-sized football pitches arranged side by side).
“15 percent of damaged wood already processed”
The processing of this damage, which is running at full speed, is a race against time, because it concerns the bark beetle, which loves damaged wood and can do much worse, as the example of East Tyrol showed. “In Tyrol, about ten to fifteen percent of the damaged wood has already been processed. We have mobilized all available forces to extract this damaged wood from the forest in the affected communities,” LHStv said. Josef Geisler (ÖVP) presented a first sobering interim report at a local inspection in the Stubai Valley.
Work is in full swing at 150 locations
Delivery systems such as stringers, helicopters, harvesters (heavy timber harvesting machines) and ground sections are currently in use at at least 150 locations. “Our goal is to remove more than half of all damaged wood from the forest before winter. How we progress and how the bark beetle develops strongly depends on the weather. However, despite all our efforts, we have to expect an exacerbated bark beetle situation in the coming year,” emphasizes Norbert Totschnig, Minister of Agriculture.
The recent storm damage in the Tyrolean forests is estimated at around 30 million euros. As already reported, Minister Totschnig will make an additional amount of 4.5 million euros available, so that the damage can be dealt with as quickly as possible.
Source: Krone
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