Report Says Too Many Trees Being Culled Over Pine Beetle Epidemic

By JEREMY HAINSWORTH

VANCOUVER (CP) – A report from a consortium of B.C. forestry-related organizations says the response to the pine beetle that has ravaged the province’s forests has been overkill.

The Overcutting and Waste in B.C.’s Interior report says too many healthy forests and large amounts of usable wood have been wasted in response to the ravenous bug. And, says the paper from the group of labour and environmental organizations, there could be climate change implications as well as dire consequences for forestry dependent communities if large numbers of healthy trees are culled along with the beetle-killed pine.

“This is a recipe for short-term and long-term pain,” the report says. “It results in the premature logging of forests that provide important natural functions at a time when we need them most.”

The study concludes that in order to create the biological diversity needed to reduce the potential for future infestations, the B.C. government must increase funding of reforestation and rehabilitation efforts.

On Wednesday, Forest Minister Rich Coleman said the government has spent more than $30 million in beetle-kill areas in the last two years and worked with communities on the issue.

And, says B.C.’s chief forester Jim Snetsinger, a harvest monitoring report has recently been posted on the government website. With figures from 2004-2006, the study the report focuses on stands that are greater than 70 per cent pine.

“We are concerned about the amount of other species and we are monitoring that,” Snetsinger said.

The new study notes that for every two pines culled due to the beetle, one or more spruce or firs are taken out.

Study author Ben Parfitt says a fundamental shift in how government and industry deal with the pine beetle problem is needed.

He says healthy forests that are nature’s best defence against catastrophic floods are being prematurely logged, leaving nothing for workers or communities for the next 80 years.

He says that wait might only have been 20 years had the forests been left alone.

The report makes five recommendations:

-(at) Increase forest conservation by banning clearcut salvage logging in mixed forests in the Interior;

-(at)Immediately reduce logging rates on the basis of an end to salvage logging in mixed forests;

-(at)Halt all logging of pure pine forests where sufficient numbers of living trees grow beneath the beetle-attacked dead trees;

-(at)Stop wasting and burning of usable logs and scrap the “take-or-pay” system that perpetuates it.

-(at)Immediately identify those beetle-attacked forests that will not be logged by the forest industry and that make sense to reforest or rehabilitate, with the province assuming those costs and responsibilities.

Sierra Club of B.C. forestry specialist Rob Duncan says the best hope for the environment and forestry communities now is to ban clearcut salvage logging.

“Many forests have withstood the beetle attack very well. They are filled with smaller and younger trees that are healthy and growing. We need to leave those forests alone for now. They are our hope for the future,” he says.

United Steelworkers spokesman Steve Hunt said the cull has been done at the cost of both jobs and the environment.

“Last year alone, nearly 1,300 more people could have worked turning usable logs that were left on the ground into lumber and other wood products. Instead, the logs were burned and added another 1.5 million tonnes to B.C.’s CO2 emissions.”

On Wednesday, the Association of B.C. Forest Professionals warned that forest debris and trees killed by the mountain pine beetle, combined with hot weather, could create another season like the firestorms of 2003.

The association also called for more government spending.

This time, it’s to clear slash from forests near cities and towns and protect communities from the danger presented by beetle-killed timber.

Coleman says many forest areas where trees have been killed by the pine beetle are not near communities, adding that some fires are left to burn themselves out as part of the natural regeneration of a forest.

The firestorms of 2003 destroyed about 300 homes in Kelowna and north of Kamloops.

The consortium producing the new report is made up of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, the Sierra Club of Canada, B.C. chapter, the United Steelworkers, the B.C. Federation of Labour, the B.C. Government Employees Union, Communications, Energy and Paperworkers, ForestEthics and the Pulp, Paper and Woodworkers of Canada.