ENVIRONMENT:
Climate-Driven Pest Devours Canada's Forests
Am Johal* - IPS/IFEJ
VANCOUVER, Jul 31 (IPS) - Environmentalists and researchers say that
climate change is a significant factor in the pine beetle epidemic that has
ravaged forests in the western Canadian provinces of British Columbia (BC) and
Alberta.
In some areas of the BC interior, almost 80 percent of the
lodgepole pines will have been devastated by the beetles within 10 years,
resulting in widespread economic consequences, according to resource experts.
"The pine beetle infestation is the first major climate change crisis in
Canada," Doug McArthur, a professor of public policy at Simon Fraser University
in Vancouver, told IPS.
"The pine beetle has survived the warmer winters
due to global warming. The result is the rapid cut of forests to salvage the
wood, which could, within seven or eight years, result in some communities being
without a forestry industry which has sustained many regions for decades. The
potential economic impact of this climate change issue is massive," he said.
A temperature of -40 degrees Celsius for a few days is needed in the
winters to kill off the beetle adequately.
Ben Parfitt, a resource
policy analyst with the BC chapter of the non-profit Canadian Centre for Policy
Alternatives, told IPS, "To contextualise the magnitude of the devastation, it
is probably the biggest landscape-level change since the ice age."
"There are forestry disease issues across the continent right now," he
said. "The pine beetle has hit lodgepole pine, but it could spread across the
continent to boreal forests as well. This could very well be only the beginning
of the implications of climate change for forests in North America and other
parts of the world."
The beetles kill the trees by boring through the
bark into the phloem layer on which they feed and in which eggs are laid.
Canada's boreal forests account for nearly one-third of the world's total forest
area.
Parfitt added, "This could hit 25 percent of the trees in BC, and
in interior areas like Quesnel, 80 percent of the trees could be unsalvageable
within five to 10 years."
Proponents of logging in the beetle-infested
areas say it reduces the risk of forest fires by removing dead wood, and
allowing surviving stands to recover and regrow faster. But Parfitt and others
believe it has contributed to the current situation by leaving older trees
susceptible to the insect.
"There have also been disease manifestations
in Alaskan spruce and other insect outbreaks in other areas of North America
where climate change has been a contributing factor," said Parfitt.
Eric
Doherty, a board member of the Vancouver-based Society Promoting Environmental
Conservation, told IPS, "Without a doubt, the consumption levels of first world
urban centres and transportation policies which contribute to the ecological
footprint are a contributing factor in climate change and symptoms of it, such
as the pine beetle crisis."
"We have to deal with the root cause of the
problem, which is to reduce [greenhouse gas] emissions. Climate change is
underway and we have to adapt to the changes. On the ground, in the forest, it
is difficult to deal with this in the short term," he said. "It has to be a
comprehensive and long-term approach by governments."
Rob Duncan, a
spokesperson with the Sierra Club of Canada, agreed that the core issue is
climate change.
"When the government found out about the infestation,
they developed a management strategy which was about salvaging as much wood as
possible by logging it as much as possible for commercial purposes," he said.
"The warmer weather in the winters allowed the beetle to proliferate to a size
over 9 million hectares."
"It was a gold rush mentality which resulted
in cutting down what were essentially community futures without thinking about
long-term timber supply and basic issues of sustainability and long-term
viability," he told IPS. "It was a short-sighted approach."
Duncan
added, "We need a mind shift to adequately deal with the problem. It is a
symptom of climate change which can only be dealt with by radically reducing
greenhouse gas emissions. There has been a six percent CO2 increase [in Canada]
as a result of the policies to cut the trees down faster. Trees are carbon
neutral, but when you cut them down the release is instantaneous."
Aboriginal communities have also been impacted. The annual cut in BC's
interior has increased by a third, to about 12.73 million logs, according to BC
journalist Terry Glavin. This increase, plus the growing beetle infestation, has
changed wildlife migration patterns, which has affected traditional hunting.
Over the next five to 10 years, an estimated 250,000 people, both
indigenous and non-indigenous, could be directly and indirectly affected if the
situation does not change.
Canada's Globe and Mail paper reported that
the federal government is redirecting 74.8 million dollars from its mountain
pine beetle fund to help communities in the BC interior diversify their
economies and support major transportation infrastructure. The federal
government has promised to spend 936 million dollars over a decade to mitigate
the impacts of the beetle epidemic, but interior communities have said that the
funding has come too late to deal with the problem, which first emerged in the
mid-1990s.
In late March, the federal government announced that it would
make 23 million dollars available immediately to British Columbia to fight the
spread of the pine beetle along the BC-Alberta border.
The combination
of global warming and the increased supply of older trees due to improved forest
fire prevention methods has increased the potential territory which the beetle
could impact.
On Apr. 12, the government of Alberta declared a state of
emergency over the mountain pine beetle when the infestation increased from
19,000 trees last year to 3 million this year. The invasion has stretched south
to the Kananaskis Country region and the eastern slopes of the Rockies.
Many First Nations peoples in British Columbia traditionally used the
wood from lodgepole pine for a variety of purposes, including poles for lodges,
homes or buildings. In the spring, they stripped off long ribbons or "noodles"
of the inner bark and it was eaten fresh, sometimes with sugar, or stored.
Parts of it were used as a base for many different medicines. It was
boiled, mixed with animal fat, and used as a poultice for rheumatic pain and all
kinds of aches and soreness in muscles and joints.
Lodgepole pine is now
harvested for lumber, plywood, and paneling. It is used to make doors, windows
and furniture, as well as railway ties, mine props and fence posts.
(*This story is part of a series of features on sustainable development
by IPS and IFEJ - International Federation of Environmental Journalists.)
(END/2007)
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