In the mountains of the Peloponnese, Greece’s usually resilient fir forests are dying on a scale that has alarmed scientists. Even in areas untouched by recent fires, vast swathes of trees are turning brown and collapsing.
Dimitrios Avtzis, a senior researcher at Greece’s Forest Research Institute, first noticed the problem while surveying a routine post-fire site. Beyond the expected burn damage, he found hundreds of hectares of dead and dying firs where flames had never reached. The destruction was so extensive that he immediately alerted the environment ministry.
Experts say the cause is a dangerous combination of pressures intensified by climate breakdown. Prolonged drought, declining winter snowfall and shrinking groundwater reserves are severely weakening the trees. Greece has lost an average of 1.5 days of snow cover each year since the early 1990s, reducing a vital source of slow-release moisture.
Weakened firs are then being attacked by bark beetles, which burrow beneath the bark and disrupt the trees’ ability to transport water and nutrients. Once beetle populations reach outbreak levels, they are extremely difficult to control. Similar die-offs linked to drought and insects are now being observed across southern Europe.
While Mediterranean forests can regenerate after fire, recovery from this compounded stress is slower and more uncertain. Scientists say urgent government action and funding are needed to protect high-altitude forests before losses become irreversible.
“There is no time to be pessimistic,” Avtzis said. “We have the knowledge and the tools. What matters now is whether we act.”
