Good afternoon.
Since the late 1990s over 18 million hectares of pine forests have been killed by mountain pine beetle in British Columbia. Beetles from these high-density populations in B.C. have expanded eastward and northward, over the Rocky Mountains and into Alberta, into forests that have not historically had mountain pine beetles. You can see from the figure I've provided here. This is an overview map of the three western provinces, so B.C., Alberta and part of Saskatchewan. The yellow, orange and red colours show the damage done by mountain pine beetle. You can see that it's primarily focused in British Columbia, with some substantial damage in the western portion of Alberta. In the green, you will see the availability and the distribution of pine. This is Jack pine, lodgepole pine and hybrid lodgepole and Jack pine that makes up the B.C./Alberta forests, and the Jack pine continues eastward into Saskatchewan.
Also on that figure you'll see a red line that cuts through Alberta. That is the leading edge of the mountain pine beetle invasion as of about 2012. This is fairly similar to what that leading edge looks like today. It has shifted a little bit, but this gives you a good understanding of the current situation.
This range expansion of the mountain pine beetle threatens the Jack pine ecosystems of Alberta's eastern boreal forest and it definitely has the potential to continue its eruptive spread through Saskatchewan and beyond.
The principal drivers of this outbreak have been two major factors. The first is a warming climate. We have less harsh winters, fewer stretches of below -35o or -40o Celsius, which is needed to kill those beetles over the winter. The other part of that related to climate is that those trees become very water-stressed during the summer, which makes them susceptible to beetle. There's also more development time during the summer months and into the fall, which allows those beetles to make it through the developmental stage they need in order to survive the winters.
The second principal driver of mountain pine beetle expansion is the abundance of mature pine on the landscape. A big part of that has been management decisions, and in particular fire suppression, which has allowed these stands to mature, and we have uniform-age pine stands across much of this region.
What can we do about pine beetle? Well, Alberta does conduct extensive aerial surveys annually to monitor and detect eruptions. They also engage in direct control, which is aimed at manipulating beetle populations to try to reduce them so they become more manageable. There are also indirect control measures, which are aimed at reducing the number of susceptible host trees on the landscape.
These strategies, as part of a data-driven management policy, can work to reduce the levels of tree mortality due to mountain pine beetle down to acceptable levels, but these methods will not necessarily suppress or eliminate the outbreak. They can, though, be effective at slowing the spread of this species.
We do know from work in British Columbia and Alberta that beetle suppression treatments are density-dependent. That means that in areas with very high beetle populations, it is much more difficult to get effective control and to have a meaningful impact. These are the areas obviously in British Columbia but also in the western portion of the province of Alberta, which I'll refer to as the “hind-flank region”. Along the leading edge, which again is that red line in the figure there, beetle densities are much lower, the pine densities are also a bit lower, and that makes it lot easier and a lot more effective to take control measures in that region.
Alberta has been very effective at aggressively monitoring and controlling for mountain pine beetle, not only throughout the province but also with monitoring into Saskatchewan. They have taken a zoned approach, so they are treating the populations in the hind flank differently from the populations that are along that leading edge, and that has shown to be a very effective strategy.
They are monitoring beyond the leading edge, eastward and northward, and they're doing active suppression along that leading edge zone where the density of beetles is much lower. They've shifted to mitigation and adaptation strategies in the hind flank regions.
The work of Dr. Allan Carroll of the University of British Columbia has shown the efficacy of Alberta's strategy. We see approximately two-thirds of the new green attack being identified by these aerial surveys, and about two-thirds of those identified attacks are then controlled and those trees are removed and destroyed. That has led to approximately 40% to 44% reduction in the infested pine on the landscape.
However, Alberta's financial resources are currently constrained for resources for their operational costs in order to support and maintain such an aggressive management strategy.
My recommendations here for the federal government are to, first, continue this approach that Alberta and Saskatchewan have collaborated on to slow and contain the spread of the mountain pine beetle. The goal here would be containment rather than total suppression of the population because the numbers are just too high in the western portion of the region for total suppression to be likely or feasible.
Alberta's data-driven approach aligns very well with an adaptive management framework, which takes an iterative approach to decision-making. We take management actions, we evaluate those outcomes, and we tweak the formula as we go. This sort of process repeats itself and has proven to be very effective in Alberta. This really is the best way to deal with the uncertainties associated with the spread of the beetle and it is likely a useful strategy for other forest pests as well.
We have an opportunity here to operate in a reactive capacity, as we have been doing, responding to outbreaks as they occur, but we also have an opportunity to be proactive in order to watch for new outbreaks as they occur—so monitor along the leading edge and beyond—and then also to suppress flare-ups as they happen. It may be possible to do some indirect control to try to reduce the amount of susceptible pine that is on the landscape.
The second recommendation that I have here is to develop a national plan to coordinate the effort for controlling the eastward and northward spread of pine beetle. This strategy needs to be flexible, following that adaptive management approach I have described. I believe the federal government should be contributing an operational cost to the Alberta and Saskatchewan initiative.
I also believe we need to see increased engagement and integration from researchers from all different disciplines and stripes from within the government as well as with universities and other researchers. There is a lot of untapped potential here. Not all of those researchers and agencies have been at the table discussing these options and it's really important that we facilitate and support an integrated systems approach. By that I mean that we look to experts in the fields of insect biology, fire ecology, vegetation, carbon, wildlife, economists, etc.
What we really need to be doing as we move forward to help build the resilience of our forests is to have an integrated approach and an integrated pest management strategy.
The mountain pine beetle is the canary in the coal mine for a lot of other forest pests, but we have a leg up in this particular battle because of the extensive history with the beetle in B.C., and now in Alberta, and we have effective control measures.
We definitely can find a way forward and I believe that Canada has an opportunity to become a world leader in eruptive forest pest management, one that promotes a resilient forest in the long term.
Thank you.
