An Interview with Dr. Robert Bruck, Ph.D. Director of the Environment for North Carolina on the State of the Appalachian Forests and Remineralization

In North America we’ve seen over the past ten or fifteen years significant and serious decline of certain forest species. The ones we’re most concerned about are high elevation red spruce and Fraser fir forests in the Appalachians. These forests comprise very unique mountaintop ecosystems on four, five and six thousand foot peaks. They’re quite rate in that they’re remnants from the last glaciation period: very beautiful, very unique. We’ve seen very rapid decline, dieback and death of these forests occur to a great extent in high elevations of the eastern Appalachians.