In Greece’s southern Peloponnese mountains, vast stretches of Greek fir forest are turning brown and dying – even where wildfires never reached. Researchers say the losses signal a deeper, climate-driven crisis affecting one of the country’s hardiest tree species.
Dimitrios Avtzis of Greece’s Forest Research Institute was surveying a routine spring fire when he noticed something unusual: large areas of dead and dying firs well beyond the burn zone. The scale was unprecedented, prompting an urgent warning to the environment ministry.
While Greece has lost about 200,000 hectares of trees to fires since 2001, experts say fire is no longer the sole threat. Prolonged drought, declining winter snowpack and rising temperatures have weakened fir trees, leaving them vulnerable to bark beetles. These insects burrow under the bark, disrupting water and nutrient transport, and can rapidly reach outbreak levels in stressed forests.
Snow cover in Greece has declined by about 1.5 days per year since the 1990s, reducing a key source of slow-release moisture. Combined with drought, this has created ideal conditions for beetle infestations, a pattern now seen across southern Europe.
Scientists say Mediterranean forests can regenerate, but recovery is slow and uneven, often taking years. Researchers are calling for urgent government action and funding to protect high-altitude forests, warning that without intervention such die-offs will become more frequent as the climate crisis intensifies.
