Six months ago a storm knocked down more than 40 million trees in Germany. Most of them were spruce in huge monocultures. Environmentally savvy foresters, according to a report in Der Spiegel, had warned that large spruce plantations were a disaster waiting to happen. So, given an opportunity to replant after the storm and make use of natural tree diversity, including broadleaves, what are most tree farmers doing? Planting pure spruce again. And they are doing so with the help of large state subsidies.