FEsruary 25, 2604 | News 5 All of province’s pine forests at risk Pine beetle epidemic creates ghost towns in B.C. Photo by Stephanie Wilson Forests like this are under threat. They are also filled with snow. And snow means mush, and we like mush. Precious precious mush. Gas Prices Burning You Up? Keep your cool on transit. Gas prices are only a small portion of the total costs of car ownership. According the Canadian Automobile Association, it costs an average of $481 per month to own and operate a car. Compare that to a Semester Pass — only $105 per semester, New routes, more service. Visit the Website today for details or pick up a Rider’s Guide. www.busonline.ca BusLine 5630011 By Patrick White, The Martlet VICTORIA (CUP) — Five years from now, logging contractors Dave and Scott Stephen will either be millionaires or starving students. The logging industry is booming in Vanderhoof, B.C., where Stephen Brothers Contracting is located. Dave and Scott own around $2-million worth of logging equipment and can’t find enough labourers to keep up with all the work being thrown their way. But between long shifts and short sleeps, many in the region wonder how long it can last. The mountain pine beetle kills trees by burrowing deep beneath the bark to lay their eggs, and swarms of the insects are currently infringing on the towns of Quesnel, Vanderhoof and Burns Lake, all of which rely on the forest industry for the majority of their jobs and income. “You never know,” says Scott Stephen. “T might be going back to school in five years if the bugs don’t die off.” The mountain pine beetle epidemic has infected 43 billion board feet of trees, which is enough to construct 5.2 million homes. It covers an area seven times the size of Vancouver Island. Without an extended cold snap of -35 C or less, the beetle will continue to spread, killing every pine tree in its path. The lodgepole pine tree, the only kind the beetles affect, currently makes up about half of all the trees in the interior of the province. For the past couple of years, virtually” every logging operation in the area has battled the beetles along a vast front of red, infected trees by removing trees from areas where the bugs have spread. By cut- ting patches in the path of the beetle’s eastward spread, loggers hope to stall its expansion. It’s a battle they are losing. At its current rate of spread, the pine beetle will soon surround these towns and render their vast pine forest worthless. The larger forestry companies are Ay ¥ f 7 CITY OF PRINCE GEORGE ai BC Transit already preparing for a decimation of their timber supply in these areas. “For the communities involved, we’re looking at what other economic opportunities are out there that are not related to wood,” ‘It might be the biggest issue in forestry right now. There’s a convenient villain in the beetle, but our funders just aren't interested in it,” said Grames in reference to the foundations’ lack of campaigning on the beetle issue. said Doug Routledge, vice-president of northern operations for the Council of Forest Industries, an industry lobby group. “Tt’s not that the forest industry is dis- appearing. We are still going to be an important player in the whole economic engine of the. province. But given the information we have, we'd be fools not to acknowledge there’s going to be some impact to our ability generate wealth in the coming years,” Routledge said. COFI is looking at diversifying the economies of affected forestry towns by attracting customer call centers, wilder- ness tourism and other businesses to locate in them. That thought has Dave Stephen wor- ried. “I can’t see more than about five per cent of the current workforce wanting to go work in a call centre,” he said. “The rest will either retire or move away. A lot of the people around here are planning on 5-10 years. I am myself.” Environmental organizations are wor- ried about the situation, but most have been silent on the issue for the past year. “The bug outbreak is a huge, huge issue,” said Panos Grames, outreach coor- dinator of forestry programs for the David Suzuki Foundation. “It might be the biggest issue in forestry right now. There’s a convenient villain in the beetle, but our funders just aren’t interested in it,” said Grames in reference to the foundations’ lack of campaigning on the beetle issue. Doug Routledge thinks environmental organizations have been quiet on the issue because they see that forestry companies have no choice but to intensely log around beetle wood. “We've been working with local envi- ronmental groups in all of these towns by taking them out there, showing them what’s going on and helping them under- stand the biology of it,” said Routledge. “The reality of it is the beetle has the potential to do as much harm as we do as an industry.” There is a chance that the pine beetle epidemic will infect all of B.C.’s pine forests. “The biologists tell us that they probably won’t attack every single tree in every single stand,” said Routledge. “The suggestion is that there will still be 30 to 35 per cent of mature pine left when the beetles finally die off. Where that’s physi- cally located is the question mark.” “It won’t be here. Every pine in Vanderhoof should be wiped out by this summer,” said Dave Stephen. Between current heavy logging and the spreading beetle epidemic, towns like Vanderhoof may be seeing a mass migra- tion to morc profitable areas over the next five to 15 years. “From what I can see, everywhere from Hope north you’re going to see huge ghost towns,” said Stephen. Archives and Special Collections is. located on the 4th floor of the Library building in Rm 5- 423. The Archives holds over 940 metres of textual material relating the history of Northern British Columbia. Special Collections holds over 5000 volumes of rare books pertaining to the North as well as copies of UNBC theses. Archives and Special Collections are. open between 8:30 - 12:30 and 1 - 4 p.m. (Mon-- Fri). You can contact them at either 960-6602 or 960-6603. Check out their website at http://libunbe.ca/ UNBCArchives/ Research @ your fingertips