GLOBE-Net April 7, 2010 - The notorious mountain pine beetle, which has ravaged the forests of North America, has been dubbed one of the continent's largest environmental disasters, according to a recent report by Vancouver-based International Wood Markets Group.

Almost a billion cubic meters of British Columbian timber is expected to fall victim to the pine beetle. Despite a decade long rescue program, the lumber industry will be facing a lack of high grade sawlog-quality wood.

The population growth of the pine beetle in Canada and the American West has been fostered by warmer and drier weather. A mild increase in temperature over the last 50 years has dramatically increased the flight time of the insects.

In the past, the beetles only had two weeks or so to infect trees. Now, warmer temperatures allow them to fly continually from May to October in some areas, effectively giving them half the year to infest trees and plant their eggs.

In the past 10 years, more than 181 000 square kilometers of forest have been killed by beetle infestation in the Western North American.

The province of B.C. alone has lost around 137 300 square kilometers of mature pine forest to the beetles and is projected to lose 80 per cent of its mature lodgepole pine trees by 2013.

Another area of concern for scientists is that the beetles have begun attacking immature trees and trees at higher altitudes, creating concern that any more increases in global temperature will intensify this problem.

Boreal forests in countries like Russia and Australia have been damaged by the increase of tree killing insects, intensified forest fires and droughts, all of which are due to a warming climate.

Scientists have discovered that Aspen trees are also being affected by the warming climate.

Recent reports have identified a huge die-off of Aspen groves, which are actually the shoots of large, underground root masses. When the roots die, so do the groves, which can be hundreds or even thousands of years old.

Loss of this much forest comes at more than an economic price. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates between 23 to 25 per cent of global diseases could be avoided by improved management of the environment. Deforestation was named as one aspect of environmental mismanagement that has the greatest impact on the health of the planet and its inhabitants.

"Deforestation is a double blow to human health," said Chris Elliot, World Wildlife Fund's (WWF) executive director of conservation. "It increases the spread of certain diseases while destroying plants and animals that may hold the key to treating illnesses that plague millions of people."

Loss of animal and in some cases, human, habitat is another effect of the forest die-off.

However, some experts argue that things may not be as bad as they seem. A review from the World Bank suggests that over the next 50 years the forest industry could adapt gradually, with minimal costs.

"Over long periods of time, assuming appropriate foresightedness, processors could adjust gradually by phasing out obsolete facilities (which often have 50-year lives) and adjusting the locations for new investments, thereby keeping additional climate-induced costs very modest."

As for the present, the move towards using the beetle ridden wood as fuel for bio-mass projects is picking up momentum.

A group of industry leaders have created the Northern Bioenergy Partnership (NBP), whose goal is to promote the bio-energy sector. They report that B.C. has nine plants producing one million tons of wood pellets every year for a growing international market.

This year alone, B.C. is expected to produce 3 million tons of wood pellets, over 90 percent of which will be exported primarily to Europe and Asia for district heating and energy purposes.

While growth in this market will create jobs and income, it alone can not solve the underlying problem of the pine beetle that experts argue will be a process, not an event.

"I see it as part of the solution to the industry's financial situation," said John Allan, President and CEO of B.C.'s Council of Forest Industries, quoted in a Business in Vancouver article. "It won't be a silver bullet, but, frankly, we need all the bullets we can get."