Germany's climate-stressed trees face 'catastrophe' as bugs attack

Germany's forests have long been treasured by its people, so the country has reacted with alarm and dismay as a beetle infestation has turned climate-stressed woodlands into brown ecological graveyards. After two unusually hot summers in a row, vast patches of the forests mythologised by medieval fairytales, Goethe's writings and Romantic painters have turned into tinder-dry dead zones. Given the scale of the threat to the one third of German territory covered by trees, Chancellor Angela Merkel's government will try to formulate new strategies at a "forest summit" on Wednesday.

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