forestryworks
Addicted to ArboristSite
Pine beetle epidemic is over: B.C. minister
By Gordon Hamilton, Vancouver Sun September 22, 2009
VANCOUVER — The mountain pine beetle epidemic is over, B.C. forests minister declared Monday.
But it’s not because the beetles have been defeated.
Rather, they have run out of trees, and that heralds a whole new set of problems, Pat Bell told the Vancouver Board of Trade.
The beetles have turned the province’s timber supply expectations upside down.
Forest companies that are running out of wood are eyeing healthy stands — including old-growth forest — in protected areas, while Bell is warning that eight to 12 sawmills could close permanently if other sources of timber are not found.
“The mountain pine beetle epidemic is largely over,” Bell said Monday.
“The bad news is that it’s because they don’t have any food left to eat. The vast majority of our pine stands have been killed at this point, and we are really in a salvage mode.” Except for a few isolated areas in the east of the province, he said the beetle population is now on the decline, having killed an estimated 24 per cent of the province’s current timber harvest.
“If we don’t do anything, mills will close,” Bell said in an interview.
“Right now, if it was status quo, we are looking at a (harvest reduction) provincewide of about 12-million cubic metres a year. Depending on the size of the mill, that’s eight to 12 mills.”
He said previous forest ministers never had to worry about running out of trees, but the beetle ended the myth that the supply was inexhaustible.
“As a result of the mountain pine beetles and decisions that have been made around species-at-risk recovery strategies and land-use planning, there is a very real possibility that we will run out of trees,” he said.
Bell said the Forests Ministry is aggressively pursuing new silviculture practices and techniques that will increase the province’s timber supply to mitigate the economic damage caused by the beetle.
He believes that could reduce the beetle’s impact on the annual timber harvest to seven per cent.
For those mills with a quickly shrinking supply, opening up access to timber locked up in land-use plans is an option the province needs to address, an industry spokesman said.
“All of the values of the landscape need to share equally in the damage the mountain pine beetle has done,” Council of Forest Industries vice-president Doug Routledge said in a separate interview from Prince George, B.C.
He said if timber remains locked up because of land use plans that protect old-growth forests and other “values,” the impact of the beetle on the forest industry will be magnified.
But Valerie Langer of ForestEthics said the environment should not have to pay for the loss of sawmill logs to the beetle.
“I am flabbergasted,” Langer said in an interview.
“The industry’s problems should not be . . . at the expense of the environment.”
Forests Ministry officials estimate that the mountain pine beetle has now killed 620-million cubic metres of timber, the equivalent of 620 million telephone poles. More than 14.5-million hectares, an area more than four times the size of Vancouver Island, have been hit.
© Copyright (c) Canwest News Service
By Gordon Hamilton, Vancouver Sun September 22, 2009
VANCOUVER — The mountain pine beetle epidemic is over, B.C. forests minister declared Monday.
But it’s not because the beetles have been defeated.
Rather, they have run out of trees, and that heralds a whole new set of problems, Pat Bell told the Vancouver Board of Trade.
The beetles have turned the province’s timber supply expectations upside down.
Forest companies that are running out of wood are eyeing healthy stands — including old-growth forest — in protected areas, while Bell is warning that eight to 12 sawmills could close permanently if other sources of timber are not found.
“The mountain pine beetle epidemic is largely over,” Bell said Monday.
“The bad news is that it’s because they don’t have any food left to eat. The vast majority of our pine stands have been killed at this point, and we are really in a salvage mode.” Except for a few isolated areas in the east of the province, he said the beetle population is now on the decline, having killed an estimated 24 per cent of the province’s current timber harvest.
“If we don’t do anything, mills will close,” Bell said in an interview.
“Right now, if it was status quo, we are looking at a (harvest reduction) provincewide of about 12-million cubic metres a year. Depending on the size of the mill, that’s eight to 12 mills.”
He said previous forest ministers never had to worry about running out of trees, but the beetle ended the myth that the supply was inexhaustible.
“As a result of the mountain pine beetles and decisions that have been made around species-at-risk recovery strategies and land-use planning, there is a very real possibility that we will run out of trees,” he said.
Bell said the Forests Ministry is aggressively pursuing new silviculture practices and techniques that will increase the province’s timber supply to mitigate the economic damage caused by the beetle.
He believes that could reduce the beetle’s impact on the annual timber harvest to seven per cent.
For those mills with a quickly shrinking supply, opening up access to timber locked up in land-use plans is an option the province needs to address, an industry spokesman said.
“All of the values of the landscape need to share equally in the damage the mountain pine beetle has done,” Council of Forest Industries vice-president Doug Routledge said in a separate interview from Prince George, B.C.
He said if timber remains locked up because of land use plans that protect old-growth forests and other “values,” the impact of the beetle on the forest industry will be magnified.
But Valerie Langer of ForestEthics said the environment should not have to pay for the loss of sawmill logs to the beetle.
“I am flabbergasted,” Langer said in an interview.
“The industry’s problems should not be . . . at the expense of the environment.”
Forests Ministry officials estimate that the mountain pine beetle has now killed 620-million cubic metres of timber, the equivalent of 620 million telephone poles. More than 14.5-million hectares, an area more than four times the size of Vancouver Island, have been hit.
© Copyright (c) Canwest News Service
