Natural Resources Committee on Oct. 16th, 2018

[Shannon Stubbs, Conservative, Lakeland, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thanks to both of the witnesses for taking the time today to share their expertise and participate in our committee.

Ms. Nicholls, you noted that the rate of spread in B.C. has been faster than at any other time in history. You reinforced the fact that B.C.'s economy is based on forestry. Both of you have reinforced the point about the health, social and safety risks of the spread of the mountain pine beetle in particular. Of course, I know that you both know the impacts in Alberta, particularly in Jasper. Your comments about the increasing spread in B.C. are also reflected in the conclusions of researchers and the park conservation manager in Jasper, who said, “For the last four or five years, it’s been approximately doubling in the area impacted in Jasper.”

There was a colleague at this committee last week, Nick Whalen, who said, “I'm just looking at this map [of the spread of the mountain pine beetle] and I'm asking why we are doing anything.” He also said, “I'm trying to understand why we should not just in some sense leave well enough alone”.

I wonder if both of you would let us know your insight about that. Obviously, there are multiple factors and long-term factors in what is going on with the spread of the mountain pine beetle and other insects.

He also made another comment, wondering “why we are trying to manage a crisis that's unmanageable. Why isn't it better just to say this is what we see the forest looking like when this crisis has passed?”

Do you think that this is a crisis that's not manageable or preventable? What are your views on those comments?

[Diane Nicholls]

Would you like me to go first?

[Shannon Stubbs, Conservative, Lakeland, AB]

Sure.

[Diane Nicholls]

Those are interesting comments, and that is a valid debate that is always ongoing when you have catastrophic losses like the ones we've seen. I can tell you a story about what we're dealing with in British Columbia currently.

As I said, we had the mountain pine beetle go through, and at that time the provincial and federal governments made the decision—with the support of the people, obviously—that because British Columbia is so forestry-dependent, we should try to get as much economic value off these dead trees as we possibly could, while at the same time trying to mitigate any potential losses into the future, trying to be on the leading edge of the infestation.

At that time, we didn't know how long the shelf life would be. When I say “shelf life”, I mean the value of the wood when you can get a product out of it, rather than having it rot. We did a salvage program. We did what we call “uplifts”. We increased the amount of cut that was available to licensees to be able to get at the leading edge of the infestation and also get the wealth we could generate off the land base, all for good reasons.

Looking back now—history is 20/20—we know that in some areas it helped very much. In other areas it was very difficult to maintain a level across the land base where we weren't impacting habitat, areas that had other values.

Now we have the spruce beetle coming through, and one train of thought says that we should do the same thing, get the economic value off that land base, which is true. However, as chief forester responsible for forest management, regulations and policies in place, this time around we've said that there are some areas we will not get into. This spread is happening too fast for us to recover everything and try to pretend we can manage it.

We can do a better job of trying to plan for resilience in the future. We can leave some areas in retention, knowing that they're going to be dead and dying, and leave some areas for salvage operations where we can get some economic value. We understand that there are specific valleys that we will not have the opportunity to get into because of timing and infrastructure needs and costs. Let's find some research dollars to evaluate those effects, so when the next epidemic comes through, we know what the right levels of intervention are.

With regard to stopping some of these pests, it's like a wildfire. It's dependent on the climate. If we get long enough and cold enough spells in our climate, it maintains the populations and they don't increase. When we don't get that, which we're seeing with climate change, we see the bugs changing their life cycles and we see an increase. When the host is no longer available, the populations of the pests die down, or they go next door and find the next host.

Is it controllable? I would say that depends on Mother Nature and the weather.

Is there an opportunity to situate the forest so there are more options for us to manage? I would suggest there absolutely is.

[Shannon Stubbs, Conservative, Lakeland, AB]

Mr. Atkinson, I would welcome you to comment.

In his previous testimony, Bradley also talked about indigenous practices of controlled fires at certain times of the year. You can comment on that if you want, or any aspect you'd like to highlight.

[Keith Atkinson]

I absolutely do want to point out that a lot of the dialogue in our communities has been about prescribed fire and traditional use of fire from our communities as a forest management strategy, I suppose you could say. The traditional knowledge and use of fire over the years would have left the forest in a different environment than the intensively managed forest plantation monoculture that we've created through forest management. It has created that strong environment, as climate change did, to allow the pests to multiply with such an abundance in the host species that it needed.

That conclusion has definitely been talked about. It's very interesting to learn how our traditional knowledge would guide and advise our forest management going forward. That's exactly the kind of work we want to be able to do with our knowledge keepers, and in collaboration with the province and others, about how we do forest management going forward. That's where we want to get to the table to offer that.

It was quite devastating to watch the mountain pine beetle erupt as it did and do the damage that it did. You know, when we start mapping out.... As the chief forester was saying, we were kind of praying for those cold winters to come back to take care of that problem. It wasn't something we could get ahead of, I don't think, at that stage.

Now, with regard to the learning and the decision on how to go forward, really what came out of our communities was the health and safety of our members. We have a distinctly higher risk of fire hazard, being in communities that are much more rural than rural British Columbia towns out on the edge—

[The Chair, Liberal, James Maloney]

Unfortunately, Mr. Atkinson, I'm going to have to stop you there.

[Keith Atkinson]

Okay.

[The Chair, Liberal, James Maloney]

We have to move on to our next questioner, Mr. Cannings.

[Keith Atkinson]

Thank you.

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

Thank you very much to both of you for being here today.

I'm going to start with Ms. Nicholls.

We've had this mountain pine beetle epidemic. We've had the fires in the last couple of years. You talked about lessons learned, about how we can create forests in the future that have better resilience through restoration management techniques.

I'm wondering if you could perhaps expand on some of that in terms of how the replanting programs are going—we obviously have a lot of hectares to replant—and whether there is some science behind how you decide what we're going to replant in those areas. Are we going to replant lodgepole pine? Are we going to replant a mix?

UBC has done a lot of work in projecting what the climate envelopes will be over the next 50 or 100 years. Maybe we should be planting Douglas fir in areas that used to have lodgepole pine and spruce—things like that.

Are we trying to learn from the past to create more diverse forests that will have resilience to whatever pest comes along, whether it's a pine beetle or a fir beetle or a spruce beetle?

[Diane Nicholls]

Absolutely. When I go around and speak, one of my comments is that we can certainly learn from the past and what we did, but we can't depend on that for the future because our ecosystems are changing.

In British Columbia, we have fantastic researchers, who have leaped ahead because we now have climate-based seed guidelines that look at the projections about where the climates are changing, how they're changing and where those seed sources should be changing along with them, to make sure that what we're planting comes from a seed source that is a resilient forest for that new climate.

We're also in the throes of creating climate-based seedling selection standards along the same lines. As you said, there are some areas that are going to get drier, hotter and shorter winters. The historical lodgepole pine may not be the best species to put there.

Having said that, British Columbia is a large land base and there is still a significant land base that we'll never be able to plant fast enough. Just because you plant, that doesn't mean that's what you end up with in your crop, because we have lots of naturals that come in as well. It really takes a forest management regime to look at the opportunities for where we plant, where we don't plant, and how we plant.

Some of the things being thought about.... In the areas where we won't get to plant, we're going to have lodgepole pine coming back. Rather than just letting it come in and having it over-dense and having the fuel loads build up, creating the same situation, maybe we have to find the elements that would allow us to space and thin those stands, get into those stands and open them up quite a bit more than we typically have. Prescribed fire is a tool, for sure. As Keith said, we can learn a lot from the elders in first nations on how to apply that, especially with respect to first nations' interests in plants and ecosystems and what they need for their traditional ways.

Going back to the idea that we can look at the past but can't push our future, we also have to look at new economies. When I say “new economies”, I mean using biomass for new products that we haven't traditionally made in British Columbia—things like bioplastics, biofuels, or biofabrics—and trying to bring in those opportunities so that, when we do forest management and we have this fibre that isn't your typical sawlog and can't go into a mill, it has a place to go, so we're not leaving those fuels out there and we can have cleaner air because we don't necessarily have to prescribe fire as much or have these catastrophic fires because of the fuel loads. That is another area that we really need to branch out into in British Columbia, and I think this is hand in glove with making a resilient, healthy forest through forest management.

It's not enough to say that we can do it. We have to have a place for it to go and a continuum across seed selection all the way through to final product.

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

Thank you.

Mr. Atkinson, one of the points you were making was around safety, around communities, getting out there and thinning the forest so the communities are safer when fires come in. That would also build more diverse forests and perhaps reduce the impact of pests on them. After the Filmon report in 2004, I know that some dollars came in. I think you mentioned that the first nations shared that with municipalities in British Columbia and it helped those programs to go on.

I'm wondering if there is a federal role here where we could provide more funding for that. It seems that we've done very little of what the Filmon report asked us to do, which would provide jobs—not just for first nations, but for all the forest industry—and create fire-safe communities.

[Keith Atkinson]

Yes, absolutely. Thank you for bringing that up. I couldn't agree more. I think there have been some attempts from our organization and from our leadership, especially as the forest fires have been increasing in the last couple of years, to seek out a new program and support the investment.

There is ongoing investment. The chief forester can probably speak to that, too. B.C. is working hard to invest in its fuel management development and land-based investment program, so we'll continue to work on that. I'm a strong believer that there's still an increased opportunity. There's a good opportunity for us to increase that work with aboriginal communities to ensure that their infrastructure and their communities become safer. We'd love to see that program advance, from the natural resource risk mitigation and management side, the health and safety side, and the emergency services side that we work on here in the province.

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

You also—

[The Chair, Liberal, James Maloney]

It's bad news, but you were overtime.

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

I had a question about territory-based work and whether the feds could get in on that. I'll just say it's a good idea.

[The Chair, Liberal, James Maloney]

Having heard the question, Mr. Tan is going to finish us off. Maybe we can incorporate that in there somewhere.

Mr. Tan, go ahead.

[Geng Tan, Liberal, Don Valley North, ON]

I have a couple of questions for Ms. Nicholls.

How does your current job as the chief forester compare with your previous career on the private side of forest management? Is there anything the government can learn from private sector forest management or vice versa?

[Diane Nicholls]

Do you mean with respect to forest health management?

[Geng Tan, Liberal, Don Valley North, ON]

Yes, with respect to forest pest management.

[Diane Nicholls]

To begin with, most privately managed forest lands in British Columbia are quite small areas in comparison to the Crown lands there, and because they're private lands, they are governed by regulations. I wouldn't say the regulations aren't as stringent, but they're more results-based. They have more opportunities to do things quickly, I would say.

If an outbreak happens on privately managed forest land, the owners are able to address the issue very quickly. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't, depending on the pest and the private lands.

The other focus on private land, of course, is the economic base. They're looking for maintaining their operation and getting the best value out of it, so they do invest in innovation. They invest in doing things differently on the land base in terms of forest management, not doing the same thing everywhere. If there is an outbreak, they shift funds right away to addressing the issue and figuring out what's best to do.

But when you're looking at something as big as the mountain pine beetle, it's very difficult to do anything different from what we do on Crown land. It's really a matter of working together for the best solutions.

[Geng Tan, Liberal, Don Valley North, ON]

You mentioned in your presentation the need for better indicators and better monitoring technology. You also mentioned that ground surveys are very effective, but very expensive.

You didn't mention remote sensing technology. Don't you think that remote sensing technology can provide the necessary help to pest management in the forestry sector? As far as I know, remote sensing technology is very advanced and has gained wide application, and not just in forest management. Can you comment on that?

[Diane Nicholls]

Yes. I was remiss in not mentioning remote sensing. We do use remote sensing, and that's also part of the aerial overview surveys. The information I have from our folks who work with this is that it offers a level of indication of forest health—whether there is an issue there or not—but the difficulty is in differentiating the cause.

When you're on the ground, you can examine the material and how the tree is reacting. You can peel back bark or whatever and identify the pest and know what reactions are going on. Remote sensing hasn't gotten down to the finite information to be able to say whether this is a burned tree, or a Douglas fir bark beetle tree, or a spruce beetle tree in year one that will be dead in year two. We haven't gotten down to that granularity.

I believe that people with better minds than mine can use the technologies that we have to get that granularity, but we just haven't had the opportunity to see that and forge ahead with looking into it.

[Geng Tan, Liberal, Don Valley North, ON]

Maybe we can consider training more volunteers—they are called citizen scientists—so we can get more volunteers working on the ground. Together with technology, like remote sensing, we can get a better result on the forest pest management.

I have roughly two minutes left.

I have one very general question. You can take your time, but of course, I have other questions for you, if I still have time.

Based on your long-term, nearly 30-year career working in the forest sector, especially forest pest management, how well are we doing? What are the challenges we're having or what achievements have we accomplished, compared to those of other countries, such as our neighbours or even countries in Europe? It's a very general question. You can take your time.

Thanks.