|
New Report on Mountain Pine Beetle Epidemic
The Mountain Pine Beetle (MPB) has a billion dollar appetite for Interior timber. A new report on the MPB states “Within the next eight years it will have destroyed 25% of the provinces marketable timber with a value pegged at over a billion dollars”.
The new report released by the Ministry of Forests paints a grim picture of the of BC forests stating the epidemic will kill more than one billion metres of Pine trees by the year 2015. Although experts predict the epidemic reached it's peak in 2005, it will not be until 2019 that losses from the Pine Beetle fall below 2003 levels.
Once a Pine tree is killed the shelf life or length of time 100% of the tree can be used as a sawlog is two years, after three years only 50% is usable as a sawlog any than that it simply cannot be used sawn wood. This is driving the frenzy to get the stands with over 70% Pine into the mills as quickly as possible, leading to cheap lumber and cheap pulp and an abundance of work for area loggers and mills. The report also went to state “Based on the assumed sawlog shelf-life, the analysis is the timber supply in some TSAs (Timber Supply Areas) could start to decline with 4 to 5 years.” This fact already has many of the provinces forestry dependent communities worried, not just for forestry jobs that may be lost but for the declines in real estate values and populations as work dries up in the industry.
There is little doubt the MPB is giving Interior sawmills and pulp mills an edge in forest products markets even with the slumping housing market and strong currency but for hong long, no one is quite sure. The full Mountain Pine Beetle Report can be found at www.for.gov.bc.ca it's well worth a read.
|
