But the precise effect of pine bark beetle plagues on the nitrogen cycle and carbon cycle is highly variable, says a research group led by the University of Idaho, who have used an ecosystem model to simulate outbreaks.
Yesterday they published their findings in the Journal of Geophysical Research.
Ask who caused this plague destroying our province's biodiversity.
Those who go to our backcountry are familiar with our huge clearcuts and the damage done.
"How goes the raping and pillaging?" is a greeting used by our truck-loggers that dates to the 1970s for its origin, well before the beetle infestation.
Truck loggers daily, monthly, annually watch the clearcuts grow. All who drive our Coquihalla Connector have seen the vast areas, some freshly logged with this season's smoking piles of wood wasted.
Watching the pine beetles kill off the Chilcotin's vast stands of lodgepole pine forest was bad enough for cattle rancher Randy Saugstad.
But he argues the greater concern is the way the B.C. government has allowed salvage logging to take precedence on Crown forests at the expense of other land uses and the environment.
Pointing to a clearcut on the hillside in the distance, he laments: "It's like a gold rush mentality. They have an insatiable appetite for this wood."
MADISON, Wis. (AP) — State forestry officials said Tuesday they're moving ahead with a multi-front plan to salvage hundreds of thousands of downed trees across far northwestern Wisconsin that calls for using soldiers to clear debris, relaxing air pollution permits and raising weight limits on the region's roads for loggers.
On August 9, the United States will makes its case to the London Court of International Arbitration that British Columbia is subsidizing timber prices for pine-beetle damaged trees.
The London Court of Arbitration is the body Canada and the U.S. selected as the final level of appeal for disputes under the Softwood Lumber Agreement.
The details of the U.S. claim have not yet been made public.
A large faction of the American public has become convinced that the only way to
conserve our prized forests on public lands is to stop harvesting, prevent wildfires, and restrict or
exclude forest management. Too often this “lock it up and let it go” mentality can have
unintended, disastrous consequences, as demonstrated across the nation in recent years. The
extensive mountain pine beetle (Dendroctonus ponderosae) outbreaks in lodgepole pine (Pinus
About 20 percent of the land has been treated.
A strong wood-products industry is key to getting rid of thousands of dead, bark beetle-infested trees that threaten to tip onto roads, power lines and campsites or harm watersheds around the Western United States, U.S. Forest Service Chief Tom Tidwell said Monday to Associated Press.
Alberta had a good year in its fight against the mountain pine beetles (Dendroctonus ponderosae Hopkins), thanks to both the weather and to the province’s containment efforts.
Aerial surveys are revealing the beetle infestation in the the province has declined this year, and have shown that no beetles travelled to Alberta from infestations in British Columbia.
The mountain pine beetle has been found in Alberta since 2002. It is estimated that 6 million hectares of forest in Alberta are threatened by the beetle.
