A Tale of Unintended Consequences

> In a small niche of the forests of China, Korea and Japan, the Asian longhorned beetle evolved unnoticed. A hardwood tree pest with a black and white specked abdomen and long antennae, it survived in a pocket of hardwood trees amidst a largely evergreen Asian forest. Because the longhorned beetle feeds on the heartwood of hardwood trees only, the beetles’ populations remained low. However, that changed in the 1960s and ‘70s, when the Chinese government planted large windbreaks of aspen trees to slow erosion and repopulate forests with hardwoods. Once the aspen forests matured in the 1980s, the beetle population exploded. Chinese foresters felled tens of thousands of acres of aspen and other hardwood trees to slow the beetle’s movement. The deforestation succeeded in lowering beetle populations in China. 

> However, the Chinese used downed trees to make crates and pallets. The larvae-infested crates filled with diapers, televisions, umbrellas and other goods traveled aboard ships to ports around the world. In New York in 1996, a Brooklyn resident reported the first finding of the Asian longhorned beetle in the United States. This story, as told by author Peter Alsop in the November issue of Smithsonian Magazine, weaves a tale of unfortunate consequences by unintentional human actions. If only the Chinese government had not planted trees atypical of the Asian landscape. If only foresters had destroyed the infested wood rather than reusing it for trade. If only…. Now the Asian longhorned beetle threatens hardwood forests in New York state, northern New Jersey, Chicago, Toronto and most recently, Worcester, Massachusetts, a town on the edge of the great Northern hardwood forest.

Peter Loring Borst 
Ithaca, NY  USA 
+42.347, -76.502

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