Taking The Pulse on Forestry Health
Friday, January 25, 2013 @ 3:59 AM
l-r NDP Caucus Communications’ Tim Renneberg chats with NDP MLA Norm Macdonald at the P.G. Civic Centre – photo 250 News
Prince George, B.C.- Norm Macdonald is the Provincial New Democrats Forestry critic, and he has been huddling in Prince George to talk with forestry stakeholders on their concerns.
Macdonald has, in the past, talked about a $100 million dollar plan that would restore forestry health in B.C., through increased silviculture, and the development of a detailed report on the status of the fibre supply.
He says the information being referenced now is painfully out of date, and out of touch with the new reality that has been created by the invasion of the mountain pine beetle. “You have to have accurate information on the inventory” says Macdonald “If we are going to make decisions about how the resource is used, we have to know what the resource is.”
On the matter of silviculture, he sides with the Forest Practices Board which said there were about 2 million hectares of forest which were not satisfactorily restocked. These are stands that were hit by fire, disease or other forces of nature. With a Provincial election just a few months away, Macdonald is not going out on a limb and making promises he doesn’t know for certain he can keep, but he would like to see a doubling of the number of seedlings planted “The most expensive part of the forest health piece will be silviculture" says Macdonald " We were supposed to be up to 50 million seedlings a year with the Forests for Tomorrow initiative, I think that’s what was promised. But I think last year, they were supposed to do 22 million seedlings and they ended up doing 13-14 million seedlings. We have to double what’s being promised. Industry does their part, the government has to do the replanting they’re responsible for."
Macdonald recognizes the resource focus has shifted from forestry to mining and natural gas production, but he says there is still excitement about forestry and the fact building with wood is a "green" initiative. "The Wood First Initiative wasn’t our idea, but it’s a good idea. We still have a lot of work to do, and that just takes time. I think a few signature buildings, they’ve talked a long time about the Wood Innovation and Design Centre and I know there is a lot of controversy around it, but the premise of having a signature building here in British Columbia made from wood is an important premise. We need a signature building we can point to because there are opportunities in construction using wood that I think are still untapped, so we have to point to it being used here."
Comments
“…..huddling in Prince George to talk with forestry stakeholders on their concerns”
Based on the picture above, it seems none showed up.
and to think if the NDP and the Sierra Club would of allowed logging in Tweedsmuir Park we wouldn’t have to worry about an audit cause we would still have forest. Oh how quickly we forget so the past can occur all over again.
It sounds like Norm is a bit out of touch. Inventories are being conducted as quickly as possible; it’s not as though they’re something that can be done in a week or two. Plus they couldn’t really do an inventory while the pine was dying; that information would have been just as useless as the old inventory.
I’d also like to know where he plans to get all these tree planters from? It’s not easy work and we’ve raised a generation who expect everything to be easy.
“And to think if the NDP and the Sierra Club would of allowed logging in Tweedsmuir Park we wouldn’t have to worry about an audit cause we would still have forest”
Yes, because the Pine Beetles would have respected the established road networks and made sure not to fly to trees that loggers couldn’t access.
I think zigzag99 is a bit out of touch …. that may have been the thinking of the day … but we now know a lot more about the MPB and the conditions required for their attack. There were multiple epicenters of the attacks, including Colorado where pine stands fared even worse than here.
It really will not make a difference in the big picture, but you might want to take you political blinders off someday and learn a bit about the science ….
Now, if you are an etymologist or forester or someone with some specialized knowledge who can jump in and provide us with a different hypothesis and provide just an iota of proof that it is a valid one, then I, for one, would be all ears.
Until then, I categorize your statement to be a political one, not a scientific one ….
NMG is correct the NDP did nothing to try and control the pinebettle when it started in Tweedmuir
Not all true boys, but to day the industry has screwed up everything being given a fee hand by the present Government, they cut, cut, cut all the support services and have no idea what the hell is happening in the forests thats a fact,
the infestation started in Tweedsmuir and the NDP was the party in power and made the decision not to allow logging. Pretty simple statement and true, it wasn’t Colorado beetles that destroyed the forest in the north it was from Tweedsmuir, which were left unchecked due to policy by the govt of the day.
steph99 on January 25 2013 6:00 PM
Not all true boys, but to day the industry has screwed up everything being given a fee hand by the present Government, they cut, cut, cut all the support services and have no idea what the hell is happening in the forests thats a fact,
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Fact? No, it’s just your semi-literate opinion.
Well I am a forestry professional and I have a degree is forest health and Zig is essentially correct. The pine beetle has been present in the forests for decades. The epizootic that devastated our forests started in the park. The population that built up there was unstoppable when it spread out into the surrounding managed forests. The infrastructure to control such a massive pine beetle outbreak did not exist and the NDP cannot really be blamed. This should sound familiar to some of the older readers, given that the same thing happened with the Spruce beetle in the Bowron some years ago.
Steph99, on the other hand is spewing pure rhetoric, devoid of facts. Any professional will tell you that the lands managed by the licensees is more strictly regulated, and thus better managed than the provincially managed lands are. For example I know for a fact that every hectare of land havested by Canfor in the region i work in (I am not a Canfor employee) has been reforested. Moreover, Canfor has detailed inventories of those reforested lands. I should know, I did a lot of them. If you don’t believe me, then check it out for yourself, rather than spout nonsense.
Caranmacil .. whether you are a registered professional forester (RPF) or a registered forestry professional (forestry technologist or technician) you should know that you are not far off the mark from Steph99 in that you are misleading people.
There are many retroactive studies which observe the major natural disturbances of the MPB in not only the BC forests, but also the pine forests of Colorado at about the same time period. Anyone who has kept up on their professional duty to read the literature to allow them to provide an apparent âprofessionalâ opinion as you did by citing that you are a âprofessionalâ apparently working in the area of silviculture would be able to cite some which would back up their opinion.
I am offering one of many which observes that there we multiple epicenters which developed at about the same time as Tweedsmuir, especially in the southern interior. Page 439 â âthe building outbreak in the southern portion of the province was likely predominantly due to localized increases.â
http://www.entomology.wisc.edu/raffa/Research/pubs-program1/2-06AukemaEcography29.pdf
Landscape level analysis of mountain pine beetle in British Columbia, Canada: spatiotemporal development and spatial synchrony within the present outbreak
In the Abstract it states the following: We examined whether the outbreak potentially originated from an epicenter and spread, or whether multiple localized populations erupted simultaneously at spatially disjunct locations.â
In the Conclusions it states:
1.First, because landscape-level signatures may be driven by multiple, and often interacting, processes, management practices against eruptive herbivores must safeguard against biases that target only one process. For example, WE DO NOT NECESSARILY ADVOCATE MANAGEMENT INTERVENTIONS AGAINST MOUNTAIN PINE BEETLE IN CONSERVATION AREAS TO PREVENT DISPERSAL INTO ADJOINING AREAS, since localized increases may be equally responsible for infestations in neighboring areas.
2.Second, DISPERSAL OF INSECT POPULATIONS IS NOT BY ITSELF A THREAT TO FORESTS. Mortality of dispersing beetles is exceptionally high (Schmid 1969) as survivors must land in areas with suitable numbers, climate, and habitat to initiate new infestations. Effective dispersal remains one of the least understood features of bark beetle biology.
3.Third, insect outbreaks depend on many factors, such as the spatial arrangement of incipient populations, extent of synchrony, climatic suitability, topography, host availability and susceptibility, and disturbance histories including previous outbreaks and fire. ANTHROPOGENIC IMPACTS, SUCH AS FIRE SUPPRESSION or application of different management strategies, any of which may depend on access or land tenure, MAY ALSO AFFECT INSECT POPULATIONS. Knowledge of such factors, how they interact, and the spatiotemporal patterns of outbreak development is critical to natural resource management, and decisions to implement strategies intended to minimize herbivore impacts. Such knowledge must be incorporated into discussions among stakeholders with potentially diverse interests in forest ecology and management.
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