Beetle a Boon and Blight for Canada's Timber Industry
Date: 02-Jun-05
Country: CANADA
The infestation in the province's Interior region will lead to a sharp increase in lumber production in the short term, but sawmills may have to close in 10 years while the forest regrows after the dead trees are harvested.
The infestation has already killed twice the amount of timber that lumber firms are now allowed to harvest across the province annually, Craig Campbell of PriceWaterhouseCoopers told an industry conference Wednesday.
"You can't underestimate the impact of the pine beetle," Campbell said, stressing that the immediately challenge for the industry is to harvest the dead trees before they deteriorate.
Officials estimate the infestation has spread over 7 million hectares (27,000 square miles) of forest since it began in the late 1990s, and could kill up to 80 percent of British Columbia's lodgepole pine trees by 2013 if it does not stop.
Mountain pine beetles have been around for thousands of years. But their populations have been kept in check by extreme winter cold that kills the larvae and by forest fires that destroy the infected trees before the beetles can spread.
The areas now suffering the infestation have not seen a major bug-killing cold snap for several years.
The tiny black beetles lay their eggs in mature trees that are prized for their lumber. The larvae eat the wood just under the bark, which the trees need to supply themselves with water and nutrients.
The beetles carry a fungus that creates a blue stain on the wood, but the trees do not lose their structural integrity if harvested within at least five years of being killed by the insects.
The province has awarded special harvesting licenses to let firm cut the dead trees. Ainsworth Lumber Co. Ltd. has won two of them and plans to build two oriented strand board mills at a cost of more than C$400 million ($320 million).
Campbell said the forest industry must also prepare for life after the infestation, and predicted up to seven sawmills may be forced to close as the availability of trees in the Interior begins to decline.
Environmentalists have also warned about the danger of over-harvesting the dead trees, noting that beetle infestations are part of the natural forest cycle.
($US1=$1.25 Canadian)
