Quote:
Originally Posted by Drewski Canuck
Bush league,
Maybe around Slave there are large cut blocks that are not salvage logs, but I still see small patch logging elsewhere and recently north of Slave Lake to Utikima Lake.
There seems to be a different treatment where it is lodgepole and jack pine forest which is being cut to stop the eastern spread of mountain pine beetle for once and for all.
Canada Environment has spent a lot of money to try and stop the eastern movement of Mountain Pine Beetle, as the fear is that if Mountain Pine Beetle gets into Saskatchewan there will be no way to stop the infestations from spreading clear to Ontario which relies on a lot of pine for timber.
As it turns out last February's - 40 C killed 98 % of the Mountain Pine beetle in Alberta, so it may have been a wasted effort to go around cutting all the pine down.
But I agree that the Mills have a lot of influence since 2014 as the forest industry is the only thing keeping much of rural northern Alberta alive these days.
Drewski
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Much of what they are taking around Slave is actually largely deciduous, to feed the pulp and OSB mills. Not related to the pine beetle efforts at all, but I suppose it makes a good excuse.
As I stated, they are not even bothering to pretend that the big cuts are about pine beetles at this point. The excuses given are as I stated, duplicating a "natural condition", and the reduction of edge habitat are the reasons given by all parties involved. None of the parties involved are trying to deny that logging practices have changed.
We all thank the timber industry for pulling us through this slump, but they pulled us through the 2008 slump in similar economic conditions while only producing 1/3 as much. The notion that rules need to be changed in order for them to keep the doors open is IMO BS. The rules are changed so that big corporations can show their share holders perpetual growth, which in regards to the timber industry is just plain short sighted.