A report released Tuesday on British Columbia’s forest industry’s harvesting of beetle-killed timber confirms that industry has been meeting government’s expectations for concentrating harvesting on dead pine trees, but says the harvest of other kinds of trees is increasing more than expected in some areas of the province.
Pine Beetle Timber
The report looks at government’s records of what was harvested throughout the area affected by the mountain pine beetle epidemic. “Over the last four years, the total amount of pine in the harvest has been steadily decreasing and was under 60 per cent of the harvest last year,” said the Forest Practices Board report.
The situation in beetle-affected forests is changing quickly. The board is encouraging government to re-evaluate decisions about what should be harvested in those areas, taking into account the current dynamics of salvage harvesting, says the report.