Pine Beetle Plague to kill 78 per cent of B.C.'s pine forest by 2015: report
Pastor Dale Morgan
Pine Beetle Plague to kill 78 per cent of B.C.'s pine forest by 2015: report
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Last Updated: Tuesday, September 18, 2007 | 10:17 AM ET
The Canadian Press
The mountain pine beetle is projected to kill more than three-quarters
of B.C.'s marketable pine forests within the next eight years, says a
report released Monday by the province's Ministry of Forests.
The report says if the pine beetle infestation continues at its current
rate, it will kill the equivalent of almost 25 per cent of the
province's entire volume of market timber.
B.C.'s forest industry is worth more than $4 billion to the economy.
"If the infestation continues to behave as it has over the past eight
years, it is projected that 78 per cent of the pine volume or 23 per
cent of the total volume on the provincial timber harvesting land base
will be killed by 2015," says the report.
The 2007 government update on the devastating mountain pine beetle
infestation studied the beetle's impact on 20 pine harvesting areas in
the province. The areas spread from Fort St. James in the north-central
part of the province to the Robson Valley in the east.
The 20 areas comprise 87 per cent of the marketable pine timber in
British Columbia. So far, the mountain pine beetle has killed 530
million cubic metres of pine trees, says the report.
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"This represents 40 per cent of the merchantable pine volume, and 12 per
cent of the total provincial marketable volume, on the timber harvesting
land base," according to the report.
British Columbia's total timber harvesting land base is 4.6 billion
cubic metres. The report says the mountain pine beetle epidemic will
kill more than one billion cubic metres of pine by 2015.
Forests Minister Rich Coleman said Monday the timber supply picture has
changed as the pine beetle infestation has grown in size and complexity.
He said the report maps out potential timber supply scenarios and
provides new information for planning sustainable forests and
communities for the future.
But the report concludes the many impacts of the infestation remain
difficult to measure and predict.
"There is uncertainty about how the infestations will proceed, how much
mortality will be experienced in the younger stands, how much of the
harvest will be directed to the stands with significant beetle kill and
the length of time dead pine can be used for saw logs or other
products," says the report.
The pine beetle kill reached its peak in the summer of 2005, killing 139
million cubic metres of trees. But the rate of pine beetle kill should
start to subside in 2009.
By 2009, the pine beetle will kill five million cubic metres annually,
says the report, but B.C.'s pine forest stands will recover once the
infestation ends.
Donna Barnett, the chairwoman of the Cariboo-Chilcotin Beetle Action
Coalition, said the report will help guide discussions and decisions on
the environmental, social and economic issues surrounding the pine beetle.