BC Pine Beetle Outbreak Affects 35K Square Miles; 40% Of Marketable Pines Destroyed

[hatrack]

VANCOUVER, British Columbia (Reuters) - Voracious beetles that have ravaged more than 9 million hectares (35,000 square miles) of British Columbia's forests have wiped out about 40 percent of the infested region's marketable pine trees, according to a report released on Monday.

The pine beetle infestation has spread unabated for eight years and unless weather conditions change to keep the tiny bugs in check, the amount of trees killed by 2015 in Canada's largest lumber exporting province will likely reach about 1 billion cubic meters (35.3 billion cubic feet), according to a provincial analysis.

The report estimated that at least 530 million cubic meters of wood has already been killed, which is about 12 percent of the western province's total supply of salable pine -- a key softwood construction lumber. But the report by British Columbia's Ministry of Forests said the number of trees killed annually appears to be declining as susceptible trees die off, and the infestation rate may return to pre-outbreak levels by 2015.

The insects have lived on lodgepole and ponderosa pine in Western Canada for thousands of years, but nature has controlled major outbreaks by killing the beetles through extreme winter cold or with forest fires. The area has not had the required cold snap in recent years, and efforts to fight fires to protect the timber supply and area communities have increased the number of older trees, which are more susceptible to an insect attack.

EDIT

http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=scienceNews&storyid=2007-09-18T012514Z_01_N17333308_RTRUKOC_0_US-PINEBEETLES.xml

[mike_c]

1. this is wholly a management issue-- another indicator that...

...forest management objectives during the last century or so were wrong-headed. One other point-- the problem isn't just that there are too many "older trees, which are more susceptible to an insect attack." The real problem is more likely the condition of those trees and the condition of the forest in general. Dense, packed western forests are full of highly stressed trees and maintain higher endemic populations of Dendroctonus beetles. They are an outbreak waiting to happen-- look at the Rockies in the U.S., where the same thing is happening.