Paper short abstract:

Climate warming is driving significant forest changes, sparking debates on forest "loss" or "death". Drawing on ethnographic findings, this paper explores the facets of loss in the forest and examines how these losses shape understandings of forests and foster new economic valorizations of nature.

Paper long abstract:

The impacts of climate warming are driving significant changes in forest ecosystems across Central Europe. Extreme weather events, drought, and insect infestations have caused substantial damage to German forests, particularly in monoculture stands (cf. Thonfeld et al., 2022). However, the extent to which this signifies forest "loss" or "death" is fiercely debated both socially and scientifically.These transformations of forests and the "haunted landscapes" (Tsing et al., 2017) they leave behind evoke feelings of shock, grief, and uncertainty. At the same time, there are voices that view the alterations in forests as an opportunity for a new beginning and chance for a fundamental change in the understanding and valorization of forests.

In this paper, I aim to follow the manifold traces of loss and death in the forest, drawing on my ethnographic findings on the phenomenon of forest dieback in central Germany. Following Rebecca Elliott, the concept of loss can be understood as an ambivalent phenomenon, which is not only able to illuminate what is being lost and what will be lost but also what must be lost in the context of forest damages in central Germany (cf. Elliott 2018: 303f.). Against this backdrop, the paper will examine how technical, economic, and scientific interventions in nature have shaped the current condition of the forests, and how forest damage and loss foster new modes of technical and economic valorization of nature. Furthermore, the paper asks how these findings can inform posthumanist and feminist concepts of more-than-human living and dying.