Carbon budget of forest products harvested from mountain pine beetle-attacked forests in the Prince George region

The risk of the mountain pine beetle (MPB Dendroctonus ponderosae Hopkins) attacked forests contributing to global climate change has many stakeholders looking for potential mitigation solutions in British Columbia, Canada. To date, these efforts maintain the notion of proactive forest management, yet lack a clear understanding of the contribution of forest products to mitigating greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. My study addressed this ambiguity by estimating the GHG emissions attributable to current and proposed forest products harvested from MPB-attacked forests. My findings found relative differences between two distinct forest products (lumber, pellets), but ultimately their outcomes are contextually driven. Moreover, the cut-off criteria and assumptions governing biogenic GHG emissions (i.e. carbon neutrality) were found to have a large impact on the industrial forest C budget. The lasting contribution of this thesis is in its reconciliation of the current dichotomy in the fields of environmental science and policy with respect to the contribution of forest products to forestry's efforts in mitigating climate change. --Leaf ii.