The Future of Forests

Reader Contribution by Staff
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I keep hearing about how pine beetles are killing whole sections of forests. How serious is this problem? Are our forests dying?

The mountain pine beetle epidemic that has been occurring throughout the West for the past few years understandably has many people concerned. From British Columbia to Montana to Colorado, pine beetles are killing millions of lodgepole, white bark and ponderosa pines. While this affects recreation, wildlife and aesthetics, it doesn’t mean the end of our forests. Bark beetles are a natural element of Western forest ecosystems; outbreaks such as these have occurred before, and the forest has recovered. Already, new seedlings and surviving trees are thriving in the open conditions created by the beetles. The question now is what the future forest will look like given additional pressures from climate change.

Historically, native bark beetles served as an “occasional” agent of forest disturbance, similar to fire, disease and wind. The beetles went through population booms and busts depending on temperature fluctuations, drought and the availability of vulnerable forest stands. Typically, when temperatures fall below minus 30 degrees Fahrenheit for several days running, it ends population outbreaks, but warmer winters caused by climate change are allowing more beetles to survive than ever before. Also, widespread forest disturbance caused by logging and fires at the end of the 19th century created conditions that favored lodgepole pine, resulting in the establishment of stands dominated by this single species that have now reached a vulnerable stage throughout the West.

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