"Everything's Fine Until It's Not"; Multiple Climate Effects Cascade Through Canada Forest Industry

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Pine Beetles

West Fraser Timber Co. Ltd. cited timber supply shortages brought on by the mountain pine beetle for permanently cutting 300 million board feet of production, at a cost of upwards of 75 jobs in the new year, at its Fraser Lake and Quesnel sawmills. That was on top of production cuts in the last stretch of the year at a string of interior mills from log supply constraints. Interfor Corp. cut about 20 per cent of production for this last quarter, citing escalating log costs, while Canfor Corp. curtailed B.C. production by 10 per cent due to log supply constraints. Conifex Timber Inc. cut production by 15 per cent at its Fort St. James, and then by another 10 per cent for the next half year.

The supply issue has, however, been looming for some time, as the large swaths of B.C. forest killed by a pine beetle epidemic decay into worthless dead stands. The tinderbox created by the outbreak, combined with warmer, drier weather, have in turn helped create back-to-back record forest fire seasons in the province.

Wildfires

In 2017 wildfires destroyed about 1.2 million hectares of forest. This fiscal year it's estimated at 1.4 million, compared with an average of 151,000 hectares for the 10 prior years. The decrease in the amount of healthy B.C. forest has pushed companies to expand further into the U.S. or abroad, said Sustar. "All these companies where B.C. was their base, they're all expanding and diversifying outside of B.C., and B.C.'s become a smaller portion."

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But he notes that government research is showing climate change impacts are coming to all areas of the Canadian woods, including the fires of the west coming east. He also sees a deterioration in the quality of the forests, as growth-rings thin and faster-growing but lower quality plants and trees mask the decline of core species. "Yeah there are a lot of trees here, but they're not as healthy as they used to be...the forest is in a process of transforming," said Cooke. "We are seeing growth declines in Eastern Canada, and this wasn't predicted to happen this soon. We thought maybe in 20, 30 years we might see this, but it's happening already."

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https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/canada-forest-fire-bugs-climate-change-1.4961044