CLIMATE CHANGE

Climate change stresses species by altering physical habitat (including access to food and water), introducing new pests and diseases, and shifting or limiting species’ ranges, which can in turn introduce competition between different species… you get the picture. 

But how does this affect our instruments – violins, violas, cellos, and basses?

Spruce and maple are fairly common, temperate tree species. They grow in temperate forests, in a wide range of habitats. Unlike ebony and Pernambuco, they can grow fairly quickly and their reproductive cycles are well documented. But these species are not a given.

Shipbuilders in Europe were excited in the 1600s to find large trees in North America for mast building and ship construction because they had been over logged locally. Loggers had harvested their timber faster than it reproduced. Loggers in the US point to historic Italian instruments that they believe are made with wood from the northeast US when Venice was importing spruce for shipbuilding. Jumping ahead several hundred years, China currently prohibits the cutting of spruce and maple for string instrument manufacturing (and probably other industries) because of forest depletion.  In 1998, China initiated severe logging reforms due to the Yangtze River floods, sandstorms around Beijing, and decreased productivity in timber forests. Instead, China’s manufacturers import spruce and lumber from other countries including Europe and the United States to build the instruments we import. In 2017, New Zealand, Russia, and the US comprised 75% of China’s total softwood log imports. In 2021, China imported roughly 30% of its total volume of softwood logs from Europe alone. China was the world’s largest wood importer, and the second-largest wood consumer. Both historically and today, we have demonstrated our ability to cut faster than the temperate spruce and maple forests could reproduce.  We have relied on these forests’ ability to reproduce with protection and time.

Climate change pushes these common species into a more precarious situation. In the Pacific northwest, hotter drier summers have caused the mass decline of Bigleaf maple species in both forests and urban areas. A recent study found “that a drier climate predisposes the bigleaf maple to decline.  When its immune system is weakened, the tree succumbs to disease and other stresses.”  https://www.zenger.news/2021/10/01/based-on-a-tree-story-iconic-bigleaf-maple-trees-are-dying-due-to-climate-change/  Almost ¼ of the trees on public lands showed signs of distress encouraged by hotter, drier summers. The stress leaves the trees susceptible to disease and pests and depletes the energy needed to reproduce.

Projecting the future with climate change is more difficult. Different models balance temperature, soil moisture, competition, and other stresses. For New England, one ecosystem projection using a dynamic model LPJ-GUESS incorporated community (species) competition which led to significant shifts in forest composition over the next 50-plus years. “From 2007 to 2099 spruce-fir and white-pine cedar were modeled to contract to mountain ranges and cooler regions…” “Our simulations indicate that deciduous forests have already shifted northward in response to historical climate change and the trend in atmospheric CO2 concentrations.” “Maple-beech-basswood, oaks, and aspen-birch were simulated to shift northward at a rate of 401 m/yr, 333m/yr, and 784 m/yr between 1901 and 2006, with continuing increased northward shifts at an increased rate of 1567 m/yr, 1392 m/yr, and 1612 m/yr over the years 2007 – 2099. In other words, the aspen-birch forest community is moving northward faster than the oaks, or the maple-beech-basswood communities.  The faster rate of change could give the aspen-birch community a significant competitive advantage over the maple-beech-basswood communities we are familiar with in Vermont, even if temporarily.  The model projects a decrease in the area of .4% from 1970 to 2099. Keep in mind that this “northward, cooler” shift can be elevation and/or latitudinal. In southern latitudes, moving up in elevation would create islands of maple-beech-basswood communities in higher elevations. 

For softwood species, spruce-fir communities in particular, “historical climate change has reduced the areal extent of evergreen forests in New England and future projected climate change is expected to result in further losses of evergreen forests.” “The simulated extent of spruce-fir … continued to decrease at an annual rate of .9% over the years 2007 – 2099.  (https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10584-012-0404-x)

In Europe, similar shifts in maple and spruce ranges are observed. From one of our partners, Annette Florinette, in the Swiss Alps “The climate change (which we can see very clearly here on our melting glaciers and the ever-increasing rockfall with mountain hiking) causes that particular tree species will grow only in higher altitudes. We can see that already on deciduous trees which grow now up to 1200 m about sea level instead of 1000 m. This will also meet the European spruce tree. The main threat to spruce trees is increasing warmth, drought, and strong storms in lower altitudes.

In our harvesting region with an altitude between 1300 - 2000 m above sea level we don't have this problem until now, we are a dry region anyway and our spruce trees are used to a dry climate. That means that they are rooted deeper in the ground to reach the water as in lower altitudes. That makes them more resistant in case of a storm. We guess that in a few years there will grow spruce trees up to 2200 m about sea level. That makes it more difficult in searching and felling.

Finding spruce trees that fulfill the strict quality criteria for instrument wood will become more difficult. Even now they are already very rare. “

We ignore the environmental realities we face when we obsess over the ultimate sound, travel to try 50 instruments so that we can choose one, and/or constantly push for lower, “affordable” prices online. We also underestimate our capacity to produce beautiful music and transfer more of that power to a specific instrument than we should. Falling in love with your instrument is valuable, but what is the real cost? Can we practice compromise in our artistic temperament in recognition of ecological stress?  When you walk in the woods, take a good hard look around you…