The bark beetle (pictured) is native to forests in the Rockies. (Photo courtesy of the Colorado State Forest Service)
In much of the West populations of the bark beetle have exploded. Trees
are dying, and the risk of forest fires is huge. Some ecologists are
saying that global warming is responsible, but forests will survive.
Steve Zelaznik reports the risk of fire is forcing communities to balance fire
prevention, and ecological preservation:
Transcript
In much of the West populations of the bark beetle have exploded. Trees
are dying, and the risk of forest fires is huge. Some ecologists are
saying that global warming is responsible, but forests will survive.
Steve Zelaznik reports the risk of fire is forcing communities to balance fire
prevention, and ecological preservation:
(Sound of trail)
We’re surrounded by forest, mostly lodge pole pines. The bark beetle is native to forests in the Rockies. The landscape is a patchwork of green and red. The red trees have been
killed by the bark beetle. Jan Hackett with the Colorado State Forest
Service says many of the green trees are also infected:
“Well I’m just pointing to the pitch tubes, and those are fresh hits
from this year’s beetles. The beetles are flying right now. This is a
result of this year’s flight, a successful hit. This tree will be red
next year.”
This means the tree will be dead. Dominick Kulakowski is a biology professor at
Clark University. He says climate change has caused warmer temperatures so the beetle can survive the winter and spread, but he says insect outbreaks like these are normal, and
the forest will recover:
“There have been very extensive, very severe outbreaks of bark beetles
in Colorado long before Colorado was even a state. Large disturbances
are a normal function of the ecosystems of the Colorado Rocky
Mountains. So while we may look out on this and be concerned by the
amount of mortality, what we need to remember is this may be
unprecedented based on what we’ve seen over the past hundred years, but
that’s partly a function of our relatively short temporal perspective.”
From an ecological perspective, Kulakowski just isn’t worried about the
beetles. But the dead trees increase the risk of fire. And with homes
nearby, the forest can’t be left to burn.
Driving up a winding road to a nearby subdivision, I’m in the car with Barry
Smith. He’s the emergency manager for the adjacent Eagle County. He says
roads like these make his job difficult:
“This is one of those subdivisions like many of our mountain
subdivisions that, from a fire safety perspective, this is the only road
to get into our out of this subdivision, so if we have a large fire
here, you’re trying to get fire equipment in and get homeowners out at
the same time and that’s going to create a lot of problems.”
So government is forced to protect nearby homes from fire, and also
preserve the health of the forest.
Increasingly, governments are addressing the problem by clearing dead
trees. State and federal governments have thinned eighteen thousand
acres in Colorado. This compares to the seven hundred thousand acres
infected.
Rob Davis is the president of Forest Energy Colorado. His company
takes dead trees, and makes wood pellets to heat homes. He says an
opportunity exists to improve the health of the forest and make a
profit:
“This is an extremely valuable resource,
do we want to use it? You know if this goes into energy and displaces
fossil fuels, it helps global warming. It helps climate change that is
one of the problems that we have with these forests. So are we going
to keep the narrow point of view that says ‘Oh! It’s got to stay
exactly like it was historically,’ or do we want to open our mind and
say ‘We can actually use this to help global warming, we can use this
in cases as long as remember that first thing is the health of the
forest…’ we can use it.”
But removing dead trees may have ecological costs. A 2002 study by the
University of Colorado concluded that harvesting forests leads to soil
erosion, loss of nutrients, and warmer ground temperatures. Professor
Kolikowski says the effects of harvesting might be worse than the initial
disturbance.
“That’s not to say that harvesting or salvaging is inappropriate, we
just need to be clear about what it is we want to do and why.”
And local governments may not have the money to do it all… to curb the
population of bark beetles, protect homes from fires, and preserve the
ecology. Tom Fry with the conservation group the Wilderness Society
remembers work he did on the Front Range. In the ten-county area, it
would have cost fifteen million a year for forty years to do risk
reduction and forest restoration:
“I think one of the messages here is we won’t have that money. We’ll
never have that money. So we as a community, and that community
includes all of us, need to be hyper strategic and surgical in where we
look to apply what resources we have.”
For the time being, governments are choosing to use their resources to
thin the forests to reduce the risk of fire from the beetle.
The U.S. Forest Service (White River National Forest) just auctioned
the right for timber contractors to remove dead trees from another
thirteen hundred acres. The work will begin by the end of the summer.
For the Environment Report, I’m Steve Zelaznik.
