Natural Resources committee  Briefly, my response would be that we do a lot of research around trying to replicate natural disturbance patterns, based predominantly on historical fires. We continue to work on it to try to see how those are going to evolve over time in a changing climate.

Natural Resources committee  As I was mentioning, we already study a fair bit around how the natural cycles would affect the patterns of the forest in the areas we manage. They vary a lot from region to region, so we need to understand the specifics. There's no one-size-fits-all solution. There are different

Natural Resources committee  Sure. The replanting is driven almost entirely by the regulations of Alberta. I'll speak to Alberta specifically. We do need to regenerate species: the same species in the same proportions that we harvest. That is in regulation in our regeneration standards today. There have def

Natural Resources committee  Generally, our approach is driven by the ecosites. There are some sites where pine will grow better, and there are other sites where white spruce will grow better. Our silviculture foresters go out into each cutblock and make an assessment on what will have the best chance of suc

Natural Resources committee  The control strategy they have in Alberta is a very good one. It just needs as many resources as we can put into it. That's where it will be the most effective. It needs to be funded to its maximum potential. The impression we're getting now is that the resources available provin

Natural Resources committee  We can slow down their spread. I don't think we can stop them completely with our control efforts, but we can have a significant impact in terms of slowing them down and minimizing the impact on the forests over time. Eventually we're going to get some help from Mother Nature to

Natural Resources committee  There are a number of different approaches or activities we're involved in, the most obvious being our direct control efforts. That's really been a combination of redirecting all of our timber-harvesting operations into beetle-infested stands today, as well as participating in th

Natural Resources committee  Yes, there's been a lot of funding provided to mountain pine beetle research. Most of that has come from the Alberta government. The Canadian Forest Service has been doing a lot of research as well. I'm not familiar with any linkages back to the carbon taxes or anything related t

Natural Resources committee  Good afternoon. My name is Richard Briand. I am the Chief Forester for West Fraser's Alberta operations. I'm a registered professional forester in Alberta, with 27 years of experience working in Alberta's forests. I thank you for the opportunity to be here today. West Fraser is