-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Globe and Mail - After feast on B.C. forest, pine beetles face
famine
Date: Wed, 26 Mar 2008 06:31:35 -0700
From: Doug Kelly <dougkelly@...>
To: undisclosed-recipients:;



INFESTATION: PARASITE RUNNING OUT OF FOOD


After feast on B.C. forest, pine beetles face famine

IAN BAILEY

March 26, 2008

VANCOUVER -- An end is in sight to British Columbia's mountain pine
beetle infestation, largely because the bugs have eaten through most of
the trees that had sustained them.

Doug Routledge, vice-president of the Council of Forest Industries, said
that it will take years to harvest dead trees for whatever value the
wood has, but that the current phase of beetle activity is winding down.

"Beetles in the western side of the Rocky Mountains have fundamentally
eaten themselves out of house and home," he said yesterday, commenting
on the release of figures on the impact of the bugs.

"The beetles are running out of food, so the populations are beginning
to crash," said Mr. Routledge.

His organization represents companies in the B.C. Interior forestry
sector that operate about 100 facilities in 60 communities. "It's on the
downward slide now.

"Instead of being worse and worse each year now, the populations are
beginning their downward cycle, which is what we expected to happen."

B.C. Forestry Minister Rich Coleman concurs.

"We can probably say the major infestation will probably be done in
three to five years," Mr. Coleman said in an interview yesterday.
"There's no doubt we're seeing the drop-off.

"There's no question it seems to have peaked and has flattened and is
probably going down now."

The minister agrees with Mr. Routledge that the bugs are simply running
out of food.

"There's always going to be bugs in the bush," said Mr. Coleman,
referring to spruce budworms or others.

And pine beetles may move east into Alberta, he said. But Mr. Coleman
noted that B.C.'s infestation is nearly over, leaving a challenge of
harvesting dead pine and replanting.

Statistics released this month by Mr. Coleman's ministry and the forest
council suggest the beetle has affected about 710 million cubic metres
of timber, or about 15 years of harvest volume, during the current
infestation, which dates back to 1999.

That new figure is up from 582 million cubic metres at this time last year.

That impact comes out of about 1.35 billion cubic metres of marketable
pine in British Columbia. Estimates suggest 76 per cent of the total
pine volume will have been killed by 2015.

But the dead, discoloured trees can still be sold for uses including
burning to generate energy.

"While the actual pine beetles themselves, their populations, will have
crashed, we're still going to be dealing with the salvage mode, the
aftermath of this, for another decade or two," Mr. Routledge said.

He said he is satisfied with the work of industry and the provincial and
federal governments on the problem.

"We've largely fallen into the right combinations of patterns to be able
to do the control where control is necessary," he said.

He suggested pine beetles have been around for decades, but the current
damage is so extensive because factors such as relatively warm winters
allowed the insects to survive.

"We have had mountain pine beetle outbreaks that we're aware of since
the turn of the century. These cycles, they happen over the centuries,"
he said.

"Mountain pine beetles will always be a part of the lodgepole pine
forests. Normally, they're at such low levels they don't do a lot of
damage. The population has got to such a huge level that they have done
considerable damage. This is the beginnings of the rapid declines or the
crash of the population as they run out of food.

"We'll be having to deal with the salvage phase of this epidemic for
another decade or two."


Grand Chief Doug Kelly (Tseem Th'ewali)
Treasurer & Tribal Chief for Intergovernmental Relations
Stó:lô Tribal Council
Area Office
PO Box 3013
Cultus Lake, BC
V2R 5H6
ph: 604-847-3561
fax: 604-847-3527

cell: 604-798-1436

email: dougkelly@...
<mailto:dougkelly@...>





[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]