Burning Homes, Burning Jobs

http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/westcoastnews/story.html?id=3c5d0a30-9df0-4eab-a471-c94f1556d91d ____________________________________________________ A TREE TOO FAR The total logging response to the pine beetle catastrophe means healthy trees are being felled with the dead ones. The policy needs rethinking In some 'beetle-killed forests,' healthy trees are also levelled in the name of salvaging economic value. Cookie-cutter responses to big problems have a way of backfiring, with the cure often proving worse than the disease. The response to the mountain pine beetle attack is a classic case in point. The beetles' shocking tear through our forests is often portrayed in apocalyptic terms and with good reason. The pine tree-killing bugs have ripped through British Columbia, are now well established in Alberta, and on the cusp of entering the continent-wide boreal forest. But what tends to get lost in all the accounts of millions of hectares of forest "killed" by the beetles is that there are still plenty of healthy trees out there. And therein lies the dilemma. The cookie-cutter response to dealing with the infestation is to dramatically increase logging rates and replicate the same kind of logging virtually everywhere. Consequently, millions of living trees fall along with the dead ones. This is one reason why five of B.C.'s leading environmental groups have joined with five labour organizations, including three unions representing forest industry workers, in a call to radically rethink the response to the infestation. In a co-published report released today, the unions and environmental groups point to a host of disturbing trends that have emerged during the current beetle-fuelled salvage logging boom. Perhaps the most significant finding is that while there is clear evidence that the logging of beetle-attacked pine trees has increased, live spruce and fir are also being cut. In fact, for every two pine trees logged, one or more spruce or fir come down. http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/editorial/story.html?id=fe37ca89-3cc0-4bc9-bdcf-ef0d6ea96604

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