Pine beetle run it's course?

Heard on the local radio today...

The forest health specialist for Kootenay Lake MoF stated that the mountain pine beetle might reach the end of it's food source in the West Kootenays within the next year or two.

Lodgepole pine is the main species attacked by the beetle, and it forms about one quarter of the forest inventory in this area. Temperature conditions required to kill the beetle over the winter have not been reached (-30 degrees C or colder for 2 to 3 weeks). The West Kootenays are fortunate to have a diverse mixture of tree species (often called a 'Kootenay mix') because no single pest could wipe out the entire forest area. There are other areas of BC that have up to 90% pine forests.

Conditions this year are expected to be suitable for the pine beetle to infect the remainder of available pine in the West Kootenay area.

What does this mean?

The pine beetle will eventually move on in search of new, live pine forests in other areas. We'll be left with the challenge of dealing with the dead pine. Where it's mixed in with other live tree species, you might not notice a change. Areas that have closer to pure pine stands (and don't get harvested) will be a source of fuel for wildfire, or possibly create soil erosion and water quality issues, since the forest cover isn't there anymore to intercept and take up rainfall.

For one, it will be interesting to see what happens in the mountains above the city of Nelson. All the red areas you could see up there last year will be turning grey this summer, the final stage of tree mortality from beetle kill.

BC mountain caribou recovery plan released

BC plan includes spending 3 million dollars, killing predators, and protecting 2.2 million hectares of land. There are currently about 1,900 mountain caribou in 12 B.C. herds. It will be interesting to watch this plan unfold, because nothing has ever been attempted like this in BC.

Full story:

http://www.cbc.ca/cp/science/071016/g10169A.html

Williams Lake Harvest increased due to Mountain Pine Beetle

from BC goverment news release, April 18, 2007:

Effective immediately, the allowable annual cut for the Williams Lake timber supply area will increase to 5.77 million cubic metres in response to the mountain pine beetle epidemic, chief forester Jim Snetsinger announced today.

The new allowable annual cut represents an increase of two million cubic metres per year from the previous allowable annual cut of 3,768,400 cubic metres.

“To reduce the impacts of the beetle and speed the recovery of new forests, the allowable annual cut should be increased,” said Snetsinger. “However, the majority of the increased and current harvesting must be directed towards the most heavily infested areas west of the Fraser River to preserve as much of the non-pine for future harvest as possible.”

In his determination, the chief forester emphasizes that harvesting must be focused in areas west of the Fraser River and in stands containing more than 70 per cent pine trees. The new harvest level also provides flexibility to address other forest health issues such as the spruce bark beetle.

The determination incorporates the requirements of existing land-use plans and forest practices legislation. Ministry of Forests and Range staff will continue to monitor the infestation and advise the chief forester if it subsides or expands beyond projected levels, in which case further examination of the timber supply may be required.

Under the timber supply review, the chief forester must determine how much wood can be harvested in each of the province’s 37 timber supply areas and 33 tree farm licences at least once every five years. The chief forester can determine new allowable annual cuts in response to abnormal situations, such as the mountain pine beetle epidemic, or postpone a decision for another five years if a harvest level is not expected to change significantly.

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Comments: This is not a huge surprise, but it results in quite a significant increase in annual allowable cut (just over 50%). I think this will help address pine forests that would have died out and remained unproductive for a long time, or worse, would have been highly susceptible to wildfire. Important to note that this increased cut is supposed to focus on pine forest types, and that non-pine types should remain unharvested in the meantime.

A look at Quesnel and the mountain pine beetle

The CBC recently did a piece on the town of Quesnel that discussed the current economy of the area, and touched on the expected future of the town after the mountain pine beetle infestation has passed.

I once did some work in Quesnel and was surprised that pine accounted for a high amount of the timber harvest in the area - something like 80% or 90%. When you consider that the MPB will kill virtually all of the pine, you have to wonder about the future of forestry in Quesnel. The focus of jobs will likely turn to silviculture and stand re-establishment, and away from mills and harvesting jobs.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/threetowns/quesnel-1.html

Denver Post article on uses for Beetle killed trees

Interesting article from Colorado in the Denver Post - Dead trees turned to new uses

We want fires suppressed, loggers barred, our forests undisturbed. But the forest needs disturbance, says Ron Cousineau, assistant district forester for the Colorado State Forest Service.

Now we are faced with the dilemma of what to do with more than half a million dead trees on over 700,00 acres and a bare-bones logging industry. Property owners have nowhere to take infected trees. Slash piles burn everywhere.

local entrepreneurs have started turning blue-stained lumber into paneling, landscaping timbers, rails and posts - refusing to believe beetle-kill wood is worthless.

Biomass heat is one of many green options being considered for the new Grand County Courthouse due to break ground this spring.

Link to full article:
http://www.denverpost.com/opinion/ci_5500493

Pine Beetle education kits in BC Classrooms

Recent BC government news:

The Province and the Council of Forest Industries have teamed up to develop education kits for teaching secondary school students about the mountain pine beetle and how British Columbia is responding to the epidemic.

“Students want to know what’s happening with the mountain pine beetle,” said Forests and Range Minister Rich Coleman. “These kits provide the learning tools to teach them everything from how a beetle attacks a tree to the economic impacts of the epidemic and how to mitigate them.”

A teacher’s binder, classroom posters, video, slide show, vials containing adult beetles and larvae, and bark and wood samples are featured in the kits. The teacher’s binder includes a lesson plan, curriculum connections, activities list, glossary of beetle-related terminology, background notes, and links to other learning resources.

Students will learn through suggested activities such as research, written and oral reports, visual presentations, class discussions, guest speakers directly involved in pine beetle management, and field trips.

The mountain pine beetle education kits have been distributed to more than 90 school districts across the province.

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This is a perfect opportunity to help students learn about bark beetle populations and their impacts on forests, especially while it's happening right in our own backyard. It's easier to learn something when it has a direct impact on you, or people you know.

Cariboo Chilcotin gets Mountain Pine Beetle funding

Recent news from the BC Government:

Communities in the Cariboo-Chilcotin will benefit from another $900,000 to help address the economic impacts of the mountain pine beetle infestation.

The Province is working closely with communities affected by the mountain pine beetle infestation to help them deal with the short-term effects of the infestation and encourage long-term economic stability.

The Cariboo-Chilcotin Beetle Action Coalition will receive $900,000 to support economic diversification efforts. The Coalition received $1.6 million in 2005. Since then, the Coalition has worked to develop a comprehensive package of background reports and strategies to manage the beetle’s environmental, economic and social impacts. Most recently, the Coalition has developed a Secondary Wood Products Strategy, which aims to double the size of the sector by 2017.

The additional funding will allow the Coalition to complete its comprehensive Regional Community Economic Diversification Strategy for the Cariboo-Chilcotin region.

“The CCBAC is determined that our communities will not only survive the mountain pine beetle infestation but that we will prosper,” said 100 Mile House Mayor Donna Barnett, also the chair of the Cariboo-Chilcotin Beetle Action Coalition. “This support and funding from the Province strengthens our ability to meet that challenge.”

The Cariboo-Chilcotin Beetle Action Coalition includes representatives from the municipalities of 100 Mile House, Quesnel, Williams Lake, the Cariboo Regional District, and First Nations, and from the forest industry and conservation sectors.

The Province’s comprehensive Mountain Pine Beetle Action Plan is designed to mitigate the environmental and economic impacts of the infestation. For more information, or to download a copy, visit www.gov.bc.ca/pinebeetle online.

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It's great to see provincial and local governments thinking in the medium to long term. Many interior BC communities will start to feel pressure on their economies when the mountain pine beetle threat has passed, and lodgepole pine stands are depleted. Forestry drives the economic engine of many interior BC communities through mill jobs and logging jobs, and all the spinoff employment for companies that serve the forest industry. These communities should be working now to diversify their economies into non-forestry related industries, so the impact won't be so great from the expected downturn in forestry.

Mountain pine beetle benefits?

I just wanted to put out a question today and see what kind of response there is.

Is there any benefit to the mountain pine beetle?

We all know there are many negatives associated with the MPB, such as large amounts of dead forest, lost habitat for deer and wildlife, loss of pine trees in urban areas, effects on hydrology in watersheds, effects on visuals, economic effects, and so on.

Does anyone know of any instances where the MPB has had a positive impact?

The only examples I can think of are benefits to insect populations that invade the dead timber, and in turn this must provide more of a food source for birds and small mammals.

Anyone else, please comment?

BC Government new Bill affects forest fires, forest activities

Here is some recent government forestry news that I thought was worth posting. It seems the government is focusing on three 'timely' subjects; forest fires, First Nations, and mountain pine beetle.

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Announced on March 15

Under new provisions of the Forest and Range Practices Act, people causing damage that adversely affects an ecosystem, such as driving four-wheel drive vehicles in wetlands, or riding ATVs irresponsibly in alpine terrain or range lands, will face penalties of up to $100,000. Cases prosecuted in the criminal courts carry maximum fines of $100,000, up to one year in jail, or both.

Bill 18 also contains provisions to other statutes, including the Forest Act, Wildfire Act, Range Act and Forestry Revitalization Act to:

· enable local governments to reduce the threat of interface wildfires to their communities through changes to the Forestry Licence to Cut;

· streamline government’s ability to increase the volume and area of a First Nation tenure, and to protect potential Aboriginal rights and title;

· provide woodlot operators with greater operational flexibility to improve their economic stability; and

· make changes to provisions governing cutting permits to facilitate the prompt harvesting of mountain pine beetle-attacked timber.

Ontario's boreal forest and global warming

A report released last week by Vancouver-based ForestEthics said continued logging of the intact boreal forest is contributing to increased carbon dioxide levels and accelerating climate change. It also suggests Ontario has to change its logging practices if it's serious about cutting harmful greenhouse gas emissions.

Ontario Natural Resources minister David Ramsay countered that only two per cent of trees in northern Ontario are logged each year. Ramsay did clarify that the province does recognize the role the boreal forest can play in halting climate change, but he said the province doesn't have to change its logging practices.

Canada's boreal forest stretches across the northern part of Canada, covers millions of hectares, and contains spruce, fir, pine, and larch trees.

A few things I would consider in this debate include:

- Forestry is a renewable resource. All the areas harvested by companies must be restocked with new trees that will continue to benefit the fight against global warming. True, it takes time for the small seedlings to grow and reach the level of CO2 uptake from the previous forest. But consider that every year previously harvested areas are coming online with older forest, there is likely minimal net loss over the entire managed area.

- Wood and fibre create necessary products and jobs. This shouldn't be an overriding factor, but if there is less supply of wood to produce lumber, for example, where will companies turn to get their building materials? Steel? Cement? Plastic? Or some other chemical based product? Personally, I am more comfortable knowing that the wood I use for my own projects is coming from an area that is being managed to produce a new forest. Wood is also more easily recycled than other building materials. As for jobs and the economy, how can we fight global warming if we have a poor economy, especially due to job losses in a renewable sector?

- Harvesting below a sustainable rate leaves more forest available to insect attack and forest fire. We already know the mountain pine beetle is in Alberta, and threatening to enter the boreal forest. Spruce and fir have their own bark beetles too. Is it better to leave more aging forest standing than necessary? Older forests generally contain more fuels and are more susceptible to insect attack - while newly harvested and planted areas have a reduced fire hazard and less fuel to burn. If harvest levels are reduced, I think it could lead to more forest fires and more dead timber from insect attacks. And when wildfire and insects have passed through areas, who will restock them? Nature can take a long time to reforest areas on her own. The environmental groups? The government? It will take a lot of resources and money to reforest large areas where there has been no economic gain, and where there is standing and fallen dead timber to work around. How much CO2 is lost from forest fires and dead forest? With harvested areas, the company uses some of the revenue from the timber to manage and restock the area.

We have already seen what can happen with aging pine forests in BC in terms of insects and fire, and we will probably see more of it in summer 2007. Provincial and National Park boundaries mean nothing to fire and pests.

At this time, when global warming, insect attacks and wildfire are interacting and their effects on forests becoming more common, I would seriously consider what benefit is gained from preserving more susceptible forest in the hope that it will be there for decades to help fight global warming.

Mountain Pine Beetle news

News out today has forestry specialists commenting on mountain pine beetle activity in BC. I would say some of the information reported is commonly known by most in the forest industry, but I thought it was still worth noting.

Attacking earlier: The pine beetles used to start their flight in July and August to begin their attack on pine trees. Now with the warmer winters, they start their flight as early as May, and may have more than one flight per year. When the flight started later in the year, attacked trees used to hold their green foliage over winter and start to turn red the following summer. When the attack starts earlier in the year, the foliage turns red in the same year.

Attacking younger pine stands: It used to be that the pine beetle would only attack mature pine, which generally have larger diameter and are 80 to 100+ years old. Researchers have found that the beetle now attacks younger and smaller pine trees. This means that areas with younger pine stands that were once thought to be safe are actually vulnerable.

Past the point of no return in BC: Researchers said that the pine beetle is now very well established and has spread too far for there to be any way to stop them. The populations have built up and the only thing that will end the infestation is the lack of pine forests. Unless there is some unforeseen event that stops the beetle, they will continue to attack the majority of the remaining pine forests in BC.

Hope for Alberta: Researchers said that although the pine beetle has become active in Alberta, it is still possible to suppress them if enough resources are employed.

Mountain pine beetle and hydrology

Just heard on the news today - researchers have reported how the mountain pine beetle epidemic is affecting hydrology in our watersheds.

Researchers have shown that when pine trees are killed, more light reaches the ground which in turn kills mosses on the forest floor. Mosses are responsible for retaining up to 50% of moisture that falls through the forest canopy. When the mosses are gone, the excess water runs off hillsides, creating more erosion and sedimentation than previously occurred. This will have serious impacts in areas where watersheds are used for drinking water, or where fisheries values are high.

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For my own side note, when pine forests are killed off their root systems no longer act to soak up moisture from the ground. This causes water tables to rise and compounds the problem identified by the researchers. That is the benefit of harvesting these pine stands where possible - forest companies are legally required to reforest areas they have logged, so forest cover will return sooner and hydrology will gradually improve. If areas of dead pine are left on their own, a new forest can take many more years to establish, plus you have the threat of a high amount of dry forest fuels that could lead to wildfire.

Pine Beetle infestation doubles in Alberta

Recent news reports that the mountain pine beetle infestation has doubled in Alberta, from 1.5 million trees to 3.0 million trees, in just the past year.

The increase is blamed on strong winds last summer that helped carry beetles from BC into Alberta. Also, warmer winters are no longer able to kill off enough of the beetle population.

At that rate, you have to question what the Alberta government can do to mitigate the problem. How fast can they plan to build roads, harvest areas, and utilize the wood? Do they have the resources to deal with huge wildfires that will likely occur in the dead, dry forests that can't be harvested? Human resources are already tight in Alberta due to the oil boom, so where will the forestry workers come from?

What's more alarming is that infested trees have been found near Slave Lake, which is close to the boreal forest. If the beetle is able to advance farther north and east, they could spread all the way to Newfoundland and Labrador.

Forestry is the third lasgest industry in Alberta, behind oil and agriculture, and the continued spread of mountain pine beetle will have massive impacts on forest companies and communities that depend on the forest resource.

2007 Gypsy Moth Treatment Planned in Courtenay, BC

I just read a news release on a planned gypsy moth treatment in BC. I've included parts of the release below, in between the dashed lines. With environmental awareness the highest it's probably ever been, aerial spray programs usually get people concerned about the pros and cons.

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The Ministry of Environment has approved aerial spraying for an isolated infestation of gypsy moth (Lymantria dispar) in Courtenay this spring.

The planned treatment consists of three aerial applications of Foray 48B between April 15 and June 30, 2007 to control the moth. Foray 48B contains Bacillus thuringiensis var. Kurstaki (Btk), a naturally occurring, soil-based organism that only impacts caterpillars that eat sprayed leaves. Btk is naturally present in urban, forest and agricultural soil around the province. It has been approved to control gypsy moth larvae since 1961.

Treatment dates are weather-dependent and will be advertised closer to the first application date. Each treatment application will be completed before 7:30 a.m. The Ministry of Forests and Range will advise of spray dates one week and 24 hours before spraying begins.

Large gypsy moth populations defoliated sections of forests and residential areas in Ontario and the eastern U.S. in recent years and pose a threat to the province’s forests, orchards and urban trees. The moths are unintentionally brought to B.C. on vehicles, trains and materials from affected areas in eastern North America on an ongoing basis. The presence of moths can pose a quarantine threat and in 1999 resulted in the U.S. threatening to refuse shipments of trees and plants from B.C.’s nurseries without additional certifications.

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According to wikipedia, Bt is included in specific insecticides under trade names such as Dipel and Thuricide. Because of their specificity, these pesticides are regarded as environmentally friendly, with little or no effect on humans, wildlife, pollinators, and most other beneficial insects.

It seems that Bacillus thuringiensis is really not a threat to anything but the moths. Carefully planned aerial spraying, especially on such a small scale as this, shouldn't pose any harm to people or animals. I remember living on campus at the University of BC in the early 90's, when some similar spray programs were going on over the Point Grey area. It was a bit unsettling hearing the planes flying overhead and knowing they were broadcast spraying, but knowing the science behind Bt helps. Much better than risking the spread of the gypsy moth to BC's orchards, city trees and forests. We've already seen what the mountain pine beetle has done to pine trees in urban and rural areas, and we don't need a repeat scenario with an insect that attacks other species of trees.

Welcome to the ForesterBlog.com

This blog will be about forestry related issues, mostly in Canada and the US, but these days we know forest practices in one part of the world can affect another.

I live in British Columbia, Canada, and this year we are expecting to see more impacts from mountain pine beetle attack on lodgepole pine stands. I have been working in and around lodgepole pine stands for the past few years and have seen the impacts firsthand.

Mountain pine beetle attack is expected to continue for at least three more years - until 2010 - at which time the majority of lodgepole pine stands in BC are expected to be dead. This will have huge environmental and economic impacts on the province, especially in areas where lodgepole pine stands dominate the landscape, such as the central and northern interior of the province. The summers have been much hotter in recent years, and the dry, dead pine stands are conducive to creating large scale forest fires.