[remote_phone]

It seems like signing up for globalization means having to accept consequences like this. You can’t bemoan when invasive species affects local ecosystems when you also allow unabated global transport with absolutely no security or inspection for diseases or insects etc.

You can’t be lazy with inspection and then be shocked when an extremely global eceonomy introduces Bark Beetles and decimate your trees. Either accept this outcome or spend more money at entry points or stop globalization with countries that don’t inspect their exports to avoid the situation completely.

[flohofwoe]

The bark beetle is not an invasive species in Central Europe though. The main reason is climate change (the last decade was increasingly hotter, drier and 'stormier') combined with a man-made tree mono culture (which goes back a few hundred years).

[leptons]

The same thing happened in California also due to climate change. The beetles here thrived far more than they used to due to shorter/warmer winters with less/no snow in the mountains, and beetle population exploded and they killed probably a million or more trees. Up in the mountains in California you can't drive anywhere without seeing thousands of dead trees all around you - and it's everywhere in the mountains here, probably millions of trees dead - I obviously don't know an exact count, but it's quite a lot.