On October 13, 2018, nearly 10,000 trees were planted at various locations around Slovenia as part of an initiative organized by the state-owned SiDG forestry company in the wake of the December 2017 derecho wind that destroyed about 3 million cubic meters of trees throughout the country.
The Regenerate the Forests initiative is part of a plan that includes the planting of around 450,000 trees on around 160 hectares this year alone.
A shovel is enough to participate in the reforestation and awareness-raising program, which attracted about 400 volunteers.
Slovenian scouts will also participate in the planting, which will supervised by foresters from SiDG and the national Forest Service.
Slovenian forests have suffered substantially on three occasions in the past three years. In February 2014 they were hit by an ice storm, which then led to a bark beetle epidemic, and finally the derecho knockdown at the end of last year.
The ice storm caused 216 million euro in damage, the knockdown 48 million euro, while the bark beetle damage is estimated to be around 150 million euro.
According to Damjan Oražem of the national Forest Service, much clean-up work has already been done, so restoration is what’s needed now.
Nature will take care of much of the regeneration, of course, but manual planting will be needed for around 1,700 of a total of 32,000 hectares. This entails planting around 4,000,000 trees, which he expects will take several years.
Photo of Carpathian Mountain forest via Adobe Stock.