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Accueil du site > Blogs > Les blogs > Greenings from Earth ! > Forests have to adapt to economic and ecologic changes

Greenings from Earth !

Par Benjamin Cliquet
23-02-2011

Forests have to adapt to economic and ecologic changes

Forests have to adapt to economic and ecologic changes
(British Columbia)
Canadian forests cover a big part of the territory. So that it stays a ressource and an asset, their management must adapt to climate change and economic crisis.

I met Luc Bouthilier in Québec, professor in forest policy at Laval University, and Dr John Innes, Dean of Forestry and the Forest Renewal British Columbia Chair of Forest Management at UBC (University of British Columbia), in Vancouver. Both of them explain the different changes and threats to the forests in Québec and British Columbia.

Until recently, in Québec as well as in British Columbia (BC), forestry was a pillar of the economy. It even helped British Columbia to develop, also because tourism in the province is based on the forests’ attractiveness. But since oil and gas developed and the economic crisis erupted, the forest industry is less important. Now, the sector represents less than 6% of the Québec’s economy, even if it is more important in local economies of this province.

In BC, wood from forests is used for :
- building construction (the most important use), a major part is exported to the USA and China ;
- arts, crafts, furniture, boats, window frames, etc ;
- bio energy, mostly waste wood ;
- palettes, mostly exported, a part is exported to Sweden because this country promised to switch to renewable resources (so they use it for biofuels). It has sense economically because there are subsidies for woods use as biofuels.

In Québec, because the replacement of newspapers by internet, 10 pulp factories went bankrupt. The rest of them (several dozens) must change of activity. One of these factories is about to use lignin, a major component of wood that can be a substitute for heavy oil, and even have a 15-year contract to sell this product to HydroQuébec, the energy company of the province.

Thus, in Québec as well as in BC and abroad (Sweden, for example), factories are learning how to use waste wood to create energy. Obviously, this type of energy is still largely minority with the competition of hydroelectricity (which is the most used energy in Québec and in BC). But whereas in Québec the economical reasons compell to that choice, BC set up a carbon tax (about 30$/ton of CO² in 2012), about two years ago, to encourage to take bio energies into consideration. Many organizations voluntarily switched for bio-energies, among which biomass takes an important part in BC.

In BC (and Québec), forests’ managers understand the usefulness of clean energies, especially as the forests are directly affected by climate change. In addition of new diseases, here are the main threats on BC’s forests :
- mountain pine beetle, an insect that already devastated vast territories of forest. These beetles are more and more numerous because of the climate change, the weather is not cold enough to kill it during the winter (it’s a very representative problem of climate change) ;
- fires in summer, partly caused by climate change ;
- climate change (it is getting warmer and, in the summer, dryer), drought kills trees.

While some people (in France) lose their time saying the global warming is not due to the human being’s action, others just try to find the solutions...

See you soon, Be green, Ben

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