Forest dieback reframed and revisited? Forests (re)negotiated in the German media between forestry and nature conservation

In Germany, the impacts of drought, heat and related bark beetle outbreaks on forests have shed light on the ongoing conflict between forestry and nature conservation approaches to forest management. The current forest damages sparked a nationwide debate about the role of forests and their adaptation to climate change. Echoing back to the debate on the German forest dieback in the 1980s, the current situation is commonly framed as forest dieback 2.0. As mass media possess discursive power in attributing specific meaning to topics, it influences public opinion and decision-making processes. Therefore, we conducted a frame analysis of newspaper articles on the impact of the drought years between 2018 and 2020 on forests. The aim was to identify the dominant actors in the debate and how they frame the current damages to German forests. Our results show that the forestry sector, politicians and journalists dominate the debate. Despite the low standing of nature conservationists in the debate, we observed a balanced, yet polarized presentation of forest and nature conservation frames. Whereas environmental factors are depicted as the main cause of forest damages, nature conservationists also blame the forestry sector. At the same time, forests are presented as the main affected as well as the most important factor to solve the crisis in relation to its climate mitigation potential. Forest management practices are identified as key instruments contributing to those solutions. In this regard, actors in the debate instrumentalize forests through dominant climate change discourses in order to legitimize their perspectives. In contrast, the societal responsibility and consequences of the forest damages are neglected.