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for Mediterranean forests, climate change is already at work

By By Annick GAZONNEAU AFP - Friday, November 9, 16h45

MARSEILLE (AFP) - From Greece to Portugal, the summer fires that are ravaging forests are the most visible to the experts of the Mediterranean forest, the effects of global warming are there.

At a conference in Marseille, which ended Friday, and forest scientists have engaged in careful consideration of "a region already subjected to severe climatic summer, where lack of water and high temperatures go hand in hand. "

The finding is unanimous: The damage on natural areas have taken all their momentum with the 2003 heat wave, but are compounded by a persistent lack of rain and ozone pollution. "In Provence, it lacks a year of rain over the past five years," said Michel Bariteau, president of Mediterranean forest, organizer of the symposium.

needle scorch and fall the following year, tops bared, discoloration, leaf gaps, dead branches are the signs of the decline of the Mediterranean forest.
The cork oak is dying in Portugal but also throughout the Mediterranean. In Spain, young stands of trees are affected. The Atlas cedar languishing in Morocco and Algeria, have experts testify.

In France, the trees are affected in the Alpes-Maritimes Aude, Scots pine Haut-Var, the Aleppo pines and oaks in the hinterlands, and since 2006 the pine.
"Since 1998, the diameter growth and shoot growth, number and size of the needles remain below normal for all the pines," says Michel Vennetier (Mediterranean Institute of Ecology).

For 50 years, leafing and flowering "have been advanced three days per decade, while senescence back, "said Isabelle Chuine (CNRS)." Temperatures are cool enough to allow the production of new leaves and is a real risk that people go out of trees " , she said.

In the region of Barcelona (Spain), "the beech leaf flushing begins a month earlier than 50 years ago and colonized heights he had never occupied," adds Carlos Gracia University of Barcelona.

Drought and lack of water or snow, also make trees more susceptible to disease caused by fungi and insects. The armyworm particularly threaten Scots pine hitherto protected by the altitude. "Trees are not able to respond to attacks as before", says the Portuguese Maria Carolina Varela.
"The landscape will be redrawn. In the Alpes de Haute-Provence, tourism may suffer a little less beautiful landscapes with their millions of trees on dry feet," said Lilian Micas (NFB).

Besides the risk of fire and erosion have worsened. In the plateau Saulx (Aude), "it cracks under our feet while we are in a climate like Jura," said Frederick Mical (NFB).

It will take a radical change in forest practices: find species more resistant to climatic stress, promote species diversity. But if the Mediterranean forest is required to "bump" to the north, Frederick Medail (Mediterranean Institute of Ecology) asked "Will we have in the south."