Bark Beetles Devastate Belize Forests
Four in Five Trees Killed in Plague

Listen to Gerry Hadden's report.

August 3, 2001 — The ground around Elvin Holland's feet had grown thick with pine needles. The manager of the Blancaneux Lodge, a high-end resort in Belize's Pine Ridge Reserve, asked his gardeners why they weren't raking. We are raking, they responded, but the needles keep falling. Even as they spoke, a falling needle hit Holland on the noggin. He knew something was wrong.

A Southern pine beetle on the attack. The tree exudes resin in an attempt to drown the beetle. Photo courtesy of the USDA Forest Service

The 110,000-acre Pine Ridge Reserve had been hailed as a model of sustainable development. But now, 80 percent of it is dead, thanks to the Southern pine bark beetle. The bugs, which have wreaked havoc in several Southern U.S. states, are devastating the forests here.

As NPR's Gerry Hadden reports on Morning Edition, the beetle is native to these forests, but locals say they've never witnessed a plague anywhere near this bad. Warm weather in recent years set the stage for the infestation. But some observers blame the government's budget cuts in the forestry department, which reduced the staff from hundreds down to just a handful.

The bugs chew their way past the bark. The trees try to protect themselves by drowning the beetles in sap, but the effort is usually futile. Once they have burrowed in, the beetles release a toxic fungus, killing a tree in a matter of weeks.

Above: Mountain Pine Ridge in 1999, before the infestation. Below: in 2001. Photo courtesy of The Janus Foundation

The timber industry has been hit hardest. As lumber companies scramble to saw as many board feet as possible, they are flooding the market, driving prices down. But Henry Lo, manager of the Malaysian-owned Yung lumber mill, expects the boom to be short-lived. "We are fighting time now," he says, estimating that in nine months to a year, there will essentially be nothing left of Belize's timber.

Although a fifth of the country's trees are still standing, they remain in peril. A second wave of bark beetles has begun to roll through the reserve, destroying saplings and the earlier survivors.

The government has recently increased the number of foresters, who are working desperately to contain the plague by riding through the forest and cutting down infected trees. But it may be too little, too late. As the severed trees crash to the ground, giant clouds of beetles escape into the sky - only to land on other trees.

Other Resources

• The USDA Forest Service offers lots of information on bark beetles.

The culprit Photo courtesy USDA Forest Service

• Virginia Polytechnic Institute maintains something called the Southern Pine Beetle Internet Control Center, a clearinghouse of information on Southern pine beetles, including research and control strategies.

• The Janus Foundation, a non-profit social and environmental group, offers more information, as well as several more pictures of the devastation in Belize.