Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
Agriculture and Forestry
Issue No. 44 - Evidence - Meeting of March 20, 2018
VANCOUVER, Tuesday, March 20, 2018
The Standing Senate Committee on Agriculture and Forestry met this day at 8:30 a.m. to study the potential impact of the effects of climate change on the agriculture, agri-food and forestry sectors.
Senator Diane F. Griffin (Chair) in the chair.
[English]
The Chair: Welcome to the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Forestry. I am Senator Diane Griffin from Prince Edward Island, and I would like to ask the other committee members to introduce themselves. We will start with the deputy chair, Senator Maltais.
Senator Maltais: Senator Ghislain Maltais, Quebec.
Senator Gagné: Raymonde Gagné, Manitoba.
Senator R. Black: Rob Black, Ontario.
The Chair: Today the committee is continuing its study on the potential effects of climate change on the agriculture, agri-food and forestry sectors. Of course, we’re very happy to be here in Vancouver. We heard some great presentations yesterday. You are our first panel today, and we’re looking forward to your impressions on how climate change has been addressed in this province.
For the first panel, we have Dr. Werner Kurz, researcher, Pacific Institute for Climate Solutions, University of Victoria, employed with Natural Resources Canada; Dr. Kathy Martin, Centre For Alpine Studies, Department of Forest and Conservation Sciences, Faculty of Forestry, UB.C., also employed with the federal government in Environment Canada; and Dr. Lisa Wood, Assistant Professor, Ecosystem Science and Management, University of Northern British Columbia.
Thank you for accepting our invitation to be here today. We greatly appreciate that. I invite you to make your presentations, and then we will have questions after all three of you have finished. We will lead off with Dr. Kurz.
Werner Kurz, Researcher, Pacific Institute for Climate Solutions, University of Victoria, as an individual: I will speak today about climate change mitigation options in the British Columbia forest sector, but our team has done similar analyses at the national scale for Canada and internationally.
The Pacific Institute for Climate Solutions was established in 2008. It is a consortium of four British Columbia universities. It conducts five large projects at the moment, one of which is the Forest Carbon Management Project that I lead. It is a consortium of collaborators from universities, the Canadian Forest Service and the Government of British Columbia.
I am also a senior research scientist with the Canadian Forest Service in Victoria. I lead there the team responsible for Canada’s National Forest Carbon Monitoring, Accounting and Reporting System. The tools we have developed over the last 30 years are used across Canada and around the world by governments, academics, industry and environmental organizations.
Climate change impacts will affect the mitigation options that we have available to us. Climate change impacts on forests will be both positive and negative. We will see enhancements of growth and changes in mortality rates. We will also see, as we have already seen, changes in disturbance rates. Therefore, understanding where, when and how impacts will occur is necessary to design climate change mitigation and adaptation strategies for the forest sector.
Forests play an integral role in the carbon cycle because wood contains 50 per cent of the dry weight as carbon. One cubic metre of wood, roughly the amount in a telephone pole, stores about 1 tonne of carbon dioxide that was removed from the atmosphere. The carbon is formed into biomass and the oxygen is released back into the atmosphere.
Globally, we release about 35 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere from the burning of fossil fuels and the manufacturing of cement. We add an additional 5 billion tonnes from deforestation and land use changes, primarily in developing countries. The good news is that only about half of the carbon that is released into the atmosphere by human activities remains there because more than the other half is taken up by oceans and, in particular, forests that remove about 30 per cent of all human-caused emissions globally.
Future sink strength of forests is of great interest to us because it may be affected by future climate change. On the next diagram, you see a picture of 1 million cubic metres of wood. In British Columbia, we harvest about 67 times this quantity every year. This is carbon that was removed from the atmosphere through tree growth. That will be removed again from the atmosphere as forests grow back. The carbon contained in this wood in British Columbia alone is more than the carbon in the emissions from all other sectors combined. Therefore, how we use this wood will determine how long that carbon dioxide is stored and how quickly it will be released back into the atmosphere.
Forests, in effect, are removing carbon dioxide emissions from the atmosphere and turning them into valuable products such as mass timber buildings, skating rinks and other services used by society.
There is discussion about how to best manage forests. These two diagrams show two contrasting approaches. The first, the upper diagram, shows an approach where we focus on conservation and maximizing the amount of carbon we store in forest ecosystems. We can achieve that by harvesting less and by applying conservation strategies, but the price we pay for that is that we have less wood available to meet society’s demands for fuel and wood products. Not having these available to us means that we will need to use more fossil fuels and other emissions-intensive products like steel and concrete to meet those demands.
An alternative approach is to maximize the amount of carbon that we remove from the atmosphere using forests. That means we have to maintain younger forests and greater harvest rates and provide more biofuels and wood products to society, but, in exchange, we’re able to reduce emissions from fossil fuels and other emissions-intensive products such as concrete.
As a scientist, we seek to contribute to this discussion by quantifying the alternative mitigation strategies and their impacts on the atmosphere. The way we do this is we evaluate mitigation options taking a systems approach as was proposed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 2007 in some report to which we contributed.
The idea is that we cannot just focus on how much carbon is stored in forest ecosystems, but we also need to quantify the amount of carbon stored in harvested wood products, as well as the changes in emissions that arise from the use of these wood products through what we call substitution benefits using wood instead of emissions-intensive materials. We evaluate the outcome of these mitigation actions relative to a base case without mitigation activities.
A wide range of options is available to us to mitigate climate change through forest sector activities. We can do a range of things in forests to increase sinks and the rate of carbon dioxide removal from the atmosphere, and to reduce sources, such as reducing slash-burning emissions. There are ways in which we can store more carbon in wood products by maximizing the carbon retention in long-lived wood products. We can achieve greater mitigation benefits by using these wood products instead of steel and concrete.
Our team has analyzed some of these options. As you see on the next slide, we use the same analytical framework that we have developed over the last 20 years to estimate and report greenhouse gas emissions in Canada’s managed forests to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. We have an ecosystem model that describes carbon storage in trees, dead wood, litter and soil. We have a harvested wood products model that tracks the fate of all carbon harvested in Canada. We have a system to estimate the changes in emissions associated with the marginal impacts from available wood products by how much are emissions reduced or increased as we make wood products more or less available.
We have done and published a number of peer reviewed papers but I will focus only on one study here, given the constraints on time. This paper was published last year by our team at PICS. It looks at the mitigation options in the forest sector of British Columbia. We estimate that by 2050, 35 per cent of the emission reduction goal for British Columbia can be achieved through activities in the forest sector at less than $100 per tonne of CO2 equivalent, with additional socio-economic benefits. We even think that greater contributions are possible with more ambitious actions.
The next slide gets a bit complicated. It is a summary of the 12 scenarios. We won’t have time to go into details, but it shows that different activities have different outcomes with regard to greenhouse gas emission reductions in different components. If we look at the right-most bar, which is the portfolio, it achieves 35 per cent of the reduction target in British Columbia by 2050. It is done by increasing the sink in forests and reducing the emissions from non-wood sources, but the price we pay for that is increased emissions from wood products. A bar above the line means greater emissions. A bar below the line means reduced emissions. The black line is the net effect of all of these combined.
If you go to the next diagram, the portfolio is now expressed relative to the changes in the systems diagram I showed you earlier. This portfolio, with regionally differentiated activities, reduces the emissions from forest ecosystems. It increases the sinks in forest ecosystems. It increases the emissions from the wood products that we use, particularly biofuels. In doing so, we reduce emissions from fossil fuels and other products.
The next slide shows the key message from all of this. The greatest mitigation benefits we can achieve through the use of wood products is achieved if we use these products to retain carbon for a long period of time, such as in buildings. If we use that wood to achieve high displacement factors, that means we use wood instead of materials such as concrete, steel and plastics, the manufacturing of which causes large emissions from process and fossil fuel burning.
The importance of long-lived wood products is recognized now also by builders and architects. You can see here examples of the kinds of buildings now being built and pursued. On the right is the tallest 18-storey contemporary wooden building in the world, here in Vancouver, the Brock Commons building on the University of British Columbia. One important aspect is that these buildings not only store large quantities of wood but can also be aesthetically pleasing.
If we want to continue to use wood to achieve climate change mitigation goals, we have also to manage our forests sustainably. We have to ensure that trees regrow. There are many opportunities for us to increase forest carbon sinks and to reduce sources through silviculture treatments such as thinning and fertilization and other aspects of sustainable forest management.
One important aspect is that, historically, not many of these intensive forest management activities have been conducted in Canada because economically, the argument goes, it is not viable. However, if the service of removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere by forests and through forest management can be compensated, as in payment for ecosystem services, then it will be much easier for society to undertake activities that help increase carbon sinks in forests.
In British Columbia, for example, forest management releases at the moment 5 million tonnes of carbon dioxide per year through the burning of slash. There are a variety of reasons, but there are alternative uses of this biomass, in particular, for liquid biofuels and other opportunities that can make use of this material while providing services for society.
Before I close, let me highlight another very important aspect of the impact of climate change we already feel in forests in British Columbia. You may have heard about the large mountain pine beetle outbreak that ravaged forests in British Columbia and caused nearly a billion tonnes of CO2 impacts on the atmosphere over the last decade, but the forest fires of 2017 were exceptional. We had the largest area burned ever in British Columbia in recorded history. More than 1.2 million hectares of forests burned. In a matter of few weeks, they released about three times the emissions from all other sectors of British Columbia. We estimate that some 180 million tonnes of carbon dioxide were released by these forest fires. As I said, this is about three times the emissions from all other sectors combined. Other aspects of ongoing research are understanding where, how and when climate change impacts will affect our forests, what we can do to accelerate regrowth after disturbances, and how we can reduce the risks of these disturbances.
In conclusion, we cannot achieve greenhouse gas emission reduction goals without, first and foremost, reducing the burning of fossil fuels. We can also use the forest sector to contribute strong sinks through what we call net negative emissions.
The PICS research team, in combination with scientists at the Canadian Forest Service and in the B.C. Ministry of Forests, is examining how the forest sector can mitigate climate change, how forests will be affected by changing environment, and what policies can help achieve mitigation objectives cost effectively and with the support of the public.
The British Columbia forest sector can make a significant contribution to mitigation, but it is also vulnerable to climate change impacts. Effective mitigation strategies involve sustainable forest management, the use of long-lived wood products for carbon storage and substitution and for bioenergy.
For your reference, there is also a list of publications. More information about the project and publications can be identified on the Internet. Thank you very much for your attention.
The Chair: Thank you for your presentation.
Kathy Martin, Professor and Senior Research Scientist, Department of Forest and Conservation Sciences, University of British Columbia, as an individual: Today I will talk about the impacts of climate change, what we know about them, on forest and mountain wildlife in Western Canada.
As a preamble, British Columbia is a high biodiversity province. It has 14 biogeoclimatic zones, 12 of which are forested. That represents two-thirds of the British Columbia land base. These lands include temperate and boreal forests that extend from wet coastal forests and oak savanna, to the mountaintops and interior to the high and dry shrub, steppe and desert.
Over 75 per cent of the land base of British Columbia is classified as mountainous, which is above a thousand metres. This high forest and mountain biodiversity has resulted in very high wildlife diversity. British Columbia supports 80 per cent of Canada’s mammals and 70 per cent of Canada’s birds.
Today, I will discuss several processes that make forest and mountain habitats and their wildlife vulnerable to climate change impacts, touch on the challenges of measuring and predicting vulnerability, and make some suggestions about their resilience to climate change. I have a couple of sets of minutes. I didn’t provide them for everyone, but you can have these later.
I will start first with a vulnerability to climate change impacts for pointy environments. Mountain environments are especially vulnerable to climate change as these habitats are comprised of steep environmental gradients due to elevation and aspect. To give you an example of that, for every 100-metre increase in elevation there is a 0.65 degree decrease in average temperature. To achieve that same average decrease in temperature, in latitude you would have to travel 90 kilometres north. The comparable change is 100 metres up or 90 kilometres north. A very small change in temperature then can have a very big impact in mountain forest habitats.
This is my Coles Notes version regarding different response levels of systems to climate change. First of all, the climates are changing. You have received a number of presentations on that. This is readily measurable and all climate models show comparable patterns. It’s just a matter of degree. The habitats are also changing. Here we can also see definite and measurable responses, but these are less predictable, which I am sure my forestry colleagues yesterday and today have addressed, for example, trees moving upslope and changing in type.
For wildlife, it’s considerably more complicated and responses vary within forest communities and even within closely related species, depending on their life history, ecology and the condition of the habitat they live in. Thus, for one thing, understanding species ecology, then, is critical to predicting their responses to climate change.
I have put two helpful resource documents in the references. There are two reports already: the State of Canada’s Birds report in 2012 and the State of North America’s Birds in 2016. These resource documents are compiled by federal, provincial and NGO agencies. They provide an overview of bird populations and their threats. They evaluate the threat to climate change and recommend management actions. It has been evaluated that forest birds have declined generally by 10 per cent overall. The species associated with mature forest had decreased the most steeply.
Climate change is ranked as the fourth most significant threat after urbanization and mature forest in these continental documents, although in almost all these situations there’s an interaction effect of habitat change and the impacts of climate. I’ll end on that point.
When we’re thinking about wildlife, the climate change impacts can have both direct and indirect effects. It’s perhaps easiest to look for direct effects, but the indirect effects are probably more prevalent. We can have short term effects such as increases in weather, weather events, minimum temperatures and whatever, and then longer term effects that relate to habitat change. I will give an example of each.
In some of the work we’re doing, looking at the resilience and adaptation to climate change for mountain and forest wildlife, one of the things I have been looking at is the increased frequency and severity of extreme events. You can look at means, but if you have a lethal event, a two-day storm that freezes you out or floods you out, then the mean is a bit less relevant. Here, though, we’re looking at how well can these birds, this wildlife, cope with events, typical daily weather and then multi-day storm or extreme events. We have been able to look at that in one of our sites, and we found that regular events of just a day are no problem; they can power through that. A multi-day event, with either multi-day rain or storm in the middle of their breeding season, can have an impact depending on the temperature. There’s an interaction between temperature and precipitation. If the storm is warm, like an average of 8 degrees, no problem; they can do very well. If the storm is cold, then nesting failure increased by three to nine times above background failure rates. Then we say that is the theory impact on the ability of the birds to cope with these extreme events. Can we predict whether we are to have more warm storms or more cold storms during the breeding season of May and June?
When I approach climate modellers to ask if we will get more warm storms or cold storms in this part of the province, they tell me they’re not there yet. This illustrates another challenge for addressing the questions which this committee is interested in. First of all, you have to determine the impacts or the coping abilities of the target organisms to changing environmental conditions, which we have done in this case. Then we need to develop more sophisticated climate models at smaller temporal and spatial scales. For example, many of these climate models use periods of a month or downscaling annual measures or monthly measures, whereas many of these events will be a matter of hours or a couple of days.
Spatial scale is another issue, especially in mountain environments. We need to work on climate models that can predict expected conditions at smaller temporal and spatial scales. Work is definitely being done at UBC and in other areas. You may meet one of those scientists this afternoon.
The second impact of climate change is on longer term habitat change. With increasing temperatures, trees will be moving upslope and further north. At the higher elevations there’s infilling of trees and shrubs that change the habitat type and connectivity. For lower elevation forest wildlife this upslope results in an increase in habitat. However, for the higher mountain species living in their sky islands, these upslope movements of trees and shrubs result in greater fragmentation and habitat loss. There will be winners and losers with climate change.
Our climate models predict that suitable habitat for alpine wildlife in the British Columbia coastal mountains will decrease by 50 to 75 per cent by 2080 due to climate-induced changes. This means the patch sizes will be smaller and the distance between the patches will increase, thus reducing connectivity. We need to aim for retaining viable populations. We need to keep these populations connected or to be concerned, at least, about the populations that look like they’re being severely disconnected.
I want to end with one message regarding adaptation and resilience of wildlife to climate change. This is a general overview of many ecosystems. Overall, we find that intact ecosystems, such as forests, mountains and deserts, have a strong moderating influence on the impacts of climate change. The bottom line is the more a system is simplified, the greater the vulnerability of its habitat and wildlife to climate change impacts. Species show lower resilience in a degraded or altered ecosystem.
One way we can look at this is that mature ecosystems with more species are considered to have a more complex portfolio of biodiversity. A more complex portfolio means they have greater insurance or resilience against biodiversity loss as these complex systems are more likely to maintain more functions under environmental perturbations.
We need to manage to maintain complex ecosystem functions in our forests and mountain habitats to deal with climate change. In this sense, then, birds and other wildlife can be good indicators of ecosystem conditions. If you have all the cards in the deck, then you are more likely to be able to handle either a shorter term or a longer term event than if you have half a deck.
I’ve listed in the minutes a number of references for the studies I’ve talked about today. Thank you.
The Chair: Terrific, thank you.
Lisa Wood, Assistant Professor, Ecosystem Science and Management, University of Northern British Columbia, as an individual: Actually, where Dr. Martin ended off is very fitting for where I would like to begin.
My research is centered on looking at climate adaptations of trees and forests to the direct effects of climate change that Dr. Martin mentioned. What is actually happening to our trees and forests from temperature change, from storm frequency and from precipitation change? Then we have those indirect effects. How does climate change affect forest health components that come in and work in our forests? How does it affect wildfire frequency? I will focus on the direct effects. How are temperature and precipitation influencing our trees and our forests?
I am also a registered professional forester in British Columbia. I have worked a bit in industry. I always have that connection to what we can do to better manage what we want to see in our forests in terms of building their resilience to climate change.
In my mind, really, the effects of climate change are directly connected to our ability to maintain resilient forests. Like Dr. Martin said, a resilient forest is one that is very biodiverse. If we have a structurally diverse and a biodiverse landscape and forest stands composed of biodiverse and structurally diverse components, we will therefore have a more resilient system to combat any direct or indirect effect of climate change. This is important, not only from an environmental standpoint for wildlife, for water quality, for maintaining forests for use, but also from an economic standpoint, to maintain a constant supply of timber for the future in a sustainable way.
There are lots of people in the province and throughout Canada who are studying all those indirect effects. People like Alex Woods, Nick Ukrainetz, Greg O’Neill with the forest service here, and Sally Aitken from UBC are doing lots of work on the indirect effects of forests and their productivity associated with resilience.
Do we currently have resilient forests in British Columbia? My answer to that is: Yes, we do; no, we don’t; and we don’t know if we have. The reason for that is because we do have some pockets of wildland forests that are maintained. They’re very biodiverse. They’re well adapted to the site, and they have been growing for a long period of time. We’re in this transition period where we’re moving from wildland forests to forests that are heavily managed forests. In that transition over the last 40 years of our planting history in British Columbia, we have been practising adaptive management. We have been trying different silviculture regimes. We’ve been planting different species and seeing what works on what sites. It has been a learning experience for us. We now have plantation forests that are between 40 and 50 years old. Some are a bit older on the coast here, but in the interior of British Columbia where I am from, our oldest plantations are about 40 years old. I am looking at how well they are adapted to climate change, and what kind of wood and what kind of trees can we expect in the next 50 years for timber supply and for creating this beautiful resilient forest to climate change.
In those managed stands is where we see some of the no, we don’t have a resilient forest coming into play. In our early days of planting we did a lot of monoculture planting. We planted a lot of similar species across the landscape. We focus in northern British Columbia for timber supply on managing what we would call preferred species. Really, there are only two or maybe three species that we’re planting in the ground to form our timber products. Lodgepole pine and white spruce are our preferred species in interior British Columbia. They go into the products that we produce from British Columbia and that we manufacture here in British Columbia.
Across the province we have a few more species. As we go more south and toward the coast we probably have in total about eight preferred species to manage. These are species we’re planting in the ground. These are species that we’re actively managing as forest managers.
Broader than that, if we look at what we consider to be our acceptable species, we have another maybe seven species that we could add to that pool, making a total of 15 coniferous species across the entire province for which we are practising some sort of forest management in two biogeoclimatic zones in British Columbia. In the northeast pocket it is our boreal white and black spruce in very specific regions in that zone. Our Engelmann spruce and subalpine fir forests are high emission forests. In a couple of spots we consider deciduous species to be preferred or acceptable; but those are the only spots in our very northeast corner of British Columbia.
Across the rest of the province most of the time deciduous species are considered to be not preferred and not acceptable for management. We essentially eliminate them as competitive species to our coniferous crop trees. I see that as being an issue in resilience because we are reducing the biodiversity of our forests which, as we have just defined, is very heavily connected to resilience.
One area where we could really do a lot more research and do some improvements in our management is to integrate those species into our management regimes, look at how the connectivity of deciduous and coniferous forests together would provide more resilience, and maybe even think about creating an economic gain from that. If we could motivate forest licensees to be economically and environmentally motivated to look at their hardwoods, then you are painting a better picture for them. If their only benefit is an environmental benefit that will not create any more jobs and will not benefit the company monetarily, that’s a difficult pill for them to swallow. Motivating them with incentives to create a market for deciduous species from the west would be one way to look at creating an overall more resilient forest in British Columbia.
As a province we have been looking at the reactions of individual species to climate change. How is the growth of individual species changing over time with climate change? I have done some work in this area. I have been looking at lodgepole pine and white spruce in the Northern Interior of British Columbia, at how our wood is changing with climate over the last 50 years, and at what’s happening to the development of the trees. I am finding some interesting things. We’re finding on sites where we don’t have any precipitation limitation the trees are benefitting from a warmer environment. The temperature is increasing but precipitation is still okay. On those sites growth is booming. Trees love it. They’re very productive.
At the same, when I look at the wood of these species on a cellular level, they’re still young or middle-aged trees. They’re not at maturity yet, but they’re producing very large thin-walled cells. That’s okay for now because we have a range of acceptable limitations on what would make a good product. Eventually it’s something to keep an eye on. If our cells keep getting very large and very thin, they’re also less dense and they’re less structurally sound than our thicker, smaller cells would be. It will potentially lead to a change in product quality out of those trees growing on those sites.
Then we have vastly different sites that are very site specific in their response. These sites are decreasing in the amount of water they get per year. They are lower precipitation, drought sensitive sites. Quite often we find trees growing on these sites that are drought tolerant. They’re okay. They’re still surviving for now, but they are growing much, much slower than they would have grown under at least a bit of a precipitation regime. They’re growing more slowly. They’re producing very tiny cells with very thick cell walls, the exact opposite of what we saw in the other sites. Those trees are producing really nice, strong wood, but not very much of it, so our timber supply decreases. We have these two vastly different types of sites.
The other main observation I have made thus far is that in high elevation sites we’re getting trees that are very responsive to summer temperature, summer peaks. As Dr. Martin was saying, one little step up in elevation is a huge temperature difference. They’re very sensitive to summer temperature changes.
Our lower elevation sites are not so sensitive to the summer temperature. They’re taking advantage of an increasing growing season length. They’re really responding to our spring and our fall precipitation and temperature regimes. They’re starting to grow longer and grow wider throughout the season, and maybe put a bit more carbon into their cell walls, which is good for sequestration.
I will end there, my main message being that we need to understand what’s going on with our individual species and how these species work together on a landscape level to produce resilience.
My thoughts on going forward from here: In terms of management we need to clearly define public and government priorities for climate change. I am hard at work on that at a provincial level right now. Sometimes telling managers to manage for climate change is very ambiguous and scary for them. It is really important to clearly define what it means for forest managers. We need to create incentives for increase in biodiversity and structure and to look at things at a landscape level. We need to provide incentives for forest companies to talk to one another so that we best use wood and create resilient landscapes, potentially creating a market for Western Canadian hardwoods. We need an economic incentive to create biodiversity and, of course, continue our research on cumulative impacts, species associations within the forest, and holistic landscape level planning. Thank you.
The Chair: Great, thank you.
We will start off with questions from the deputy chair of the committee, Senator Maltais.
[Translation]
Senator Maltais: Ladies and gentlemen, welcome. Thank you for your testimony. Just before we get to the heart of the matter, Mr. Kurz, could you give a bit of an explanation of British Columbia’s Forest Act?
If I understand correctly, 95 per cent of the land belongs to the Crown, and the Crown issues operating licences to both forestry and mining companies. What are the obligations of these companies, once they have signed the contract with the government, to exploit so many square metres of wood? What are their obligations to the government?
[English]
Mr. Kurz: I should start by saying that I am an ecosystem scientist that deals with carbon cycles and not with regulations, but I will briefly attempt to answer your question.
British Columbia has 95 per cent to 96 per cent public forest, owned by the Crown. The Crown issues licences on an area basis or on a volume basis to forest companies that have the right and the obligation to harvest the wood there. With that, follows a whole series of obligations for re-establishing forests. There is a need to demonstrate, after a period of time, a free to grow status. That means a sufficient number of the acceptable species of trees have to be present on the site. There has to be an expectation that these established trees will be free to grow and not under competition with shrubs or other vegetation. The expectation is that the companies use natural regeneration and/or seeding, planting, et cetera, to establish newly growing forest and monitor their performance thereafter.
There are a lot of other obligations in terms of road construction and deconstruction and culvert maintenance, et cetera. In broad strokes, the key thing is that where forests are harvested for commercial purposes there is a requirement to re-establish forest growth. There is no obligation to re-establish forests on the non-timber harvest land base. The total forest area in British Columbia is about 55 million hectares, of which 23 million. On the remaining forest area, if wildfires or insects kill the forest there is no requirement from anybody to re-establish the forest.
One of the things being done by British Columbia with the forest carbon initiative is to invest funds into the re-establishment of forests on areas where there was no harvest. Therefore, there is no industrial obligation to re-establish these forests. Using public resources to do that enhances a carbon sink that would otherwise not occur or not occur as fast.
[Translation]
Senator Maltais: My question was to determine how to build a forest. The policy that generally applies, at least in Eastern Canada, is “one tree cut, one tree planted,” to prevent having a generation of native trees that aren’t useful because they won’t absorb carbon, unlike conifers. So, I don’t think you have it, this policy because if you let the land repopulate naturally, there will be a population of native trees with little value that would take X years to mature and wouldn’t absorb the necessary carbon, the way conifers do. That’s my understanding. Of course, the policy of one tree cut, one tree planted avoids 20 years of carbon non-absorption. I think nature does its job well. If a mature tree absorbs X quantity of carbon, a growing tree will absorb less, but in a longer time. That is my understanding of this point.
In the beginning, you said something that struck me. You have done a lot of studies in British Columbia, in universities in British Columbia, and internationally. Which international universities have you worked with? Which ones did you consult to arrive at your report?
[English]
Mr. Kurz: For the last 15 years, we have been working with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which represents several hundred scientists from around the world, from many different universities and from many different countries. We are working closely with forest services of Canada, the United States and Mexico. We are also working closely with the Joint Research Centre of the European Union representing 26 countries where our model is being used. We work with many different universities across the country: University of Toronto, Université Laval, University of British Columbia, Simon Fraser University, UNBC, and many more.
The work that has been done is the outcome of the collaborative effort of many scientists from around the world. It’s reflected in a large number of peer reviewed scientific publications that we routinely publish to establish the credibility of the work. The system we’re using to report on greenhouse gas emissions and removals in Canada’s forest is also subject to international review as part of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.
I don’t know if that answers your question.
[Translation]
Senator Maltais: Yes. In British Columbia, what is the amount of forest carbon accounted for in terms of greenhouse gas emissions? What is the percentage, for example, of agricultural carbon or industrial carbon?
[English]
Mr. Kurz: First of all, the relative importance of the forest sector varies dramatically over time. In the 1990s, forests in British Columbia were predominantly carbon sinks. The reason was that growth rates, even with harvesting, exceeded the releases of carbon dioxide.
In 2000, we saw the onset of big changes as the mountain pine beetle started to affect now about 17 million hectares of land across British Columbia over a 10-year period. The carbon sink was dramatically reduced because the trees, that would have otherwise grown, stopped removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and the dead trees are starting to release carbon dioxide.
Moreover, we had a series of forest fires, 2017 being the worst year, but 2003 and 2004 also were bad fire years, et cetera. The carbon balance of forests and the contribution to the provincial carbon balance varies greatly by decade and between years. In recent years, the forests have been a net source as a consequence of the impacts of, predominantly, these very large natural disturbances.
[Translation]
Senator Maltais: But you still need the lungs to absorb the carbon. I think we agree on that.
I have a quick question for Ms. Martin, if you don’t mind. Of course, you have spoken about the effects of global warming on ornithology. What are the effects on fauna, such as cervidae, be it caribou, moose or mountain goats? What is the impact on their lives of the temperature differences you mentioned?
[English]
Ms. Martin: Yes, it’s the same general pattern. It’s the uncertainty. I guess for the ungulates, there has been some work done in Alberta. Generally, for ungulates or deer across Canada, the unreliable winter conditions are a real problem for a number of these mountain species. Either warming up or icing for any species of mammal that hibernate can be a huge problem. If you normally get minus 30 degrees, a warming up to plus 10 and a rain, and then a freeze again, it can be very difficult with high mortality for mammals, marmots, pikas and a number of species, either ones that are hibernating or ones that are active. For the resident species, unreliable winter conditions pose a big problem. Warmer is not better in winter.
Senator Gagné: What is the percentage of trees harvested annually in British Columbia? Professor Kurz, do you have an idea?
Mr. Kurz: Much less than 1 per cent of the area per year. I don’t have it as a percentage. I don’t know.
Senator Gagné: It is less than 1 per cent.
Mr. Kurz: Much less than 1 per cent. I can get you that.
Senator Gagné: That’s okay. Let’s say less than 1 per cent is logged each year. They are returned to forest, right? After the logging there is reforestation. When the forests are reforested, how is the reforestation managed? What factors usually are taken into consideration when you make decisions pertaining to the tree species that are planted in those forests?
Ms. Wood: A forester has certain stocking standards. Our stocking standards are provincial guidelines for which species are suitable for which types of sites. Our province is broken up into 14 different biogeoclimatic zones, depending on the climate regimes that are active on those sites, the topography of the sites, the dominant tree species on the sites, the moisture regimes and the nutrient regimes. All of those are factors. A species that would be selected for any given site would be appropriate for the zone that it’s placed in, for the moisture regime, and with consideration for what’s naturally growing there before harvest. Obviously, we always encourage putting species back into places that they were naturally in, to begin with. However, there is some advancement in that taking place. Some of the provincial legislation now allows for consideration of range advancement under climate change.
First, a forest manager would think about the stock. We have genetically improved stock, what we consider to be A class seed source stock, which has been researched and tested for things like resiliency to forest health agents or better productivity. Those types of stock would be selected for planting in an appropriate area.
Senator Gagné: What about resiliency? Is that part of the factors considered?
Ms. Wood: In terms of no longer planting monocultures, yes. Trying to increase biodiversity is definitely an acknowledgement that we don’t want to plant all the same species. We want to mix species as much as we can. There are some areas in British Columbia, especially in northern B.C., where one species is prolific throughout an area. They can be low in resilience naturally. We are trying to still feed into natural processes while at the same time increasing resilience. You wouldn’t go into an area and plant 10 different species just for the sake of it.
It is a consideration, but we still need more information about species associations, how species work together and what is the response of one to another’s presence. A forester will not want to plant two species beside each other that will directly compete with one another and then result in both species being no good.
We want to play into the dynamics of two species, three species or four species that work really well together. We want to take advantage of different resources, at different times that are complementary to one another, as opposed to directly competitive with one another, to create a good timber supply source and a nice, resilient forest for other things like wildlife.
Mr. Kurz: I have two points to add. Historically, there has been a very strict regulation on what is called provenance of seeds. You can’t just take seeds from one region and plant them far away. However, there is now the concept of assisted migration. As Dr. Martin described, change in climate is associated with a northward and upward shift in temperature zones. Because trees live a long time to maturity, the idea behind assisted migration is that you take a domestic species and move it northward or upward by a small amount in anticipation of the future climate. Of course, you have to be careful with how far you move because they have to survive in today’s climate.
I want to add another point to Dr. Wood’s comments on the importance of deciduous species. Deciduous species, like coniferous species, remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. They can make an equal contribution as carbon sink, but they have other features such as reduced risk of wildfire during some times of the year. They don’t crown as easily as conifer forests do.
Senator Gagné: I am sorry.
Mr. Kurz: They don’t crown, so the fires don’t jump into the canopy as much when you have green leaves. They can play a potentially important role in affecting the resilience of a landscape to wildfire impacts.
Lastly, they also have another impact on climate. They have different characteristics in terms of reflecting sunlight. The albedo, which is the fraction of sunlight that is reflected back into the atmosphere, determines the warming of the earth’s surface. If you have an ice surface albedo is nearly one, so everything is reflected. If you melt the ice and have open water, the heat is absorbed. It is the same with forests. If you have a dark-coloured forest, more heat is absorbed. If you have a light-coloured deciduous species, you will get more reflectant. Climate impacts can be modulated, not only through greenhouse gases, but also through other biophysical impacts on the climate system.
Ms. Martin: I will make one more point that Dr. Wood could probably back up with details on our higher elevation forests and the temporal framework of what you plant. Of course, the companies are interested in having trees that plant quickly so they can get through their free to grow obligations. Often climatic events can happen after the free to grow and then everything just dies, like in the Engelmann spruce and subalpine fir zones. The uncertainty is also much higher. Not only is the growth slower but the uncertainty is higher. Dr. Wood might want to make a point about that.
Ms. Wood: Yes, that’s correct. To expand on that, our obligations as forest managers only go to what we would consider to be free to grow. I don’t know if everybody knows what that term is. We have used it a few times here. We get to a point in the forest where a survey is conducted. The forest stand is usually between 10 and 15 years of age. It’s free of major health disturbance effects. It’s growing nicely. It’s at the right density. They all look good. We’re signing the block back off to the government, so the forest licensee no longer has a responsibility to manage that stand. From that point on until harvest at maturity, so 80 to 100 years of age, no monitoring or management goes on in the stand.
We’re now realizing there a lot of forest health agents and disturbances can take place after that fact. Nobody is watching. Nobody is keeping track of that. There is an acknowledgement of that and maybe some movement in that direction to make up for it, but there’s nothing in legislation to make that happen.
Senator R. Black: I have a few questions. Who is eradicating the deciduous species that you talked about? Is it your forest managers?
Ms. Wood: Yes. A lot of the deciduous species are considered competitive to the crop trees, so the forest licensees will brush them away. They will mechanically or chemically brush them away at early ages, depending on what is allowed in the area and how heavy and how competitive they are. There’s a management decision that goes into whatever equation they’re using.
Senator R. Black: That’s to get to the free-to-grow stage. Is that right?
Ms. Wood: Correct, it is to make sure the crop trees are free of competition at that stage. That’s right.
Senator R. Black: Do deciduous, coniferous and other species vary in their ability to absorb or sequester carbon?
Mr. Kurz: The ability of a tree species to sequester carbon is directly proportional to the growth rate and the specific gravity of wood. One cubic metre of oak wood is much heavier than a cubic metre of spruce, but a cubic metre of spruce accumulates much faster than oak, typically. These are broad generalizations.
Senator R. Black: Yes.
Mr. Kurz: Basically, the amount of wood produced is proportional to the amount of carbon sequestered from the atmosphere.
Senator R. Black: In one of the spare slides in your paper you talk about forest carbon management demonstration areas. Are there many of those here in the province?
Mr. Kurz: No, they’re not at the moment at all. I don’t think any area in the province is specifically designated as that. It is an idea that I have been discussing with a number of people across Canada and internationally. I was just in Sweden last week where I made the same proposal there.
The idea is basically that if we want to mitigate climate change through forest management actions, we have to invest money, which means we need to have and sustain public support to do so. That requires that we demonstrate to predominantly urban populations in our countries what is happening in the backwoods. That information is currently not readily available. It’s often dominated by campaigns highlighting the ugliness of a clear-cut. We rarely see pictures of what forests look like 10, 20, 50 or 100 years after a clear-cut.
If we want to make use of this very large potential of forests, and more broadly land management, to contribute to climate change mitigation, we need to be able to demonstrate to the public that the desired future conditions they strive for can be achieved in these forests, whether that is biodiversity, species mixes, et cetera.
Therefore, I see an opportunity in creating some of these demonstration areas where one can have a dialogue with stakeholders on the outcomes of what they did 10 years or 30 years ago. In the context of adaptive management we monitor what we implemented. We look at the outcomes. We revise our approaches once we have data to demonstrate what worked and what didn’t work.
Senator R. Black: I have one final question with respect to the use of wood products. There are a couple of pictures in here of tall buildings. Do you know if any green building technology has been used within the agriculture sector to any great extent?
Mr. Kurz: Historically, all barns were built out of wood.
Senator R. Black: Historically.
Mr. Kurz: No, I am not aware of any examples, but that doesn’t mean they don’t exist. Obviously, I would think that today’s large structures in the agricultural sector will be built with —
Senator R. Black: Cement.
Mr. Kurz: With cement, but the picture in there is of a hockey rink that is 1.5 hectares in size. You can build very large structures with modern wooden beams. Historically we used very large dimension trees. They don’t exist to the same extent or we don’t want to use them for these purposes. What we do instead is we take trees of smaller dimension, cut them into squares of various shapes, and then they get laminated together. By doing so, we can build engineered wood products that have very good characteristics, store the carbon, and substitute steel and concrete.
The Chair: I have a few questions for you before we go to a second round. If you look at it from the point of view of the Government of Canada, it has two major types of toolboxes at its disposal. One relates to regulatory with forests and land use, except for national parks and other Crown land owned by the federal government. Basically this is a provincial jurisdiction, so I will not ask you about any regulatory suggestions you can give us because we’re not really in that field.
The other major toolbox is economic instruments. You’ve specifically said there are incentives that can help achieve biodiversity. Could I get you to expand on that? Perhaps the other two panelists might like to do that too. What financial incentives or policy incentives can the Government of Canada take to help achieve a greater diversity in our forests and therefore have a positive impact regarding climate change?
Ms. Wood: Yes, absolutely. One specific thing that has been talked about a lot in British Columbia and not acted upon is trying to diversify product industry and create value-added products. This would have a whole range of benefits, not just for climate change and forest resilience.
There’s a reluctance to get into that. It requires a lot of capital investment to develop manufacturing facilities for different types of wood, to try to figure out the best drying schedules and the best manufacturing schedules for different species. What kinds of products will be best made? Where is the market for these products? All of that requires market information and facility development.
The forest companies that exist right now in British Columbia, at least the big players, are reluctant to invest money when they’re unsure of the result. Providing incentives that way may be contributing financially to the development or creation of products, at least at an exploratory level using species that exist now but are new to the product world, and investing in product development while keeping in mind the use of a greater diversity of species. That would be very valuable.
The other is a greater pool of research to connect to industry such as providing opportunities for pilot projects and operational scale projects to determine whether or not a silviculture regime will work in any given area to increase resilience.
Finally, what comes to my mind plays on what Dr. Kurz said earlier about forest residuals. We have piles of wood that we don’t pull out of our forests. They’re typically just burned in the province, creating a carbon emission. There’s reluctance in the current licensee of that area to allow another type of licence or another operator to come in to salvage that wood and use it for products. It could be used and developed into products.
Maybe incentives could be provided for forest companies to participate with other individuals, manufacturers or smaller scale operators to use the residual wood for other purposes. Then it would not be burnt. That would be another avenue.
Mr. Kurz: Given that the jurisdiction for forest management lies with the provinces and territories, the role of the federal government in providing incentives, as Dr. Wood said, is related to creating innovation and research.
Also, my own organization has played and will continue to play an important role in providing the information and tools to help assist the 13 provincial and territorial jurisdictions with work that individually would be difficult to conduct alone. Some of the large provinces have strong research components, but the kind of work that is being done and the challenges of climate change affect all provinces and all territories. The resilience of forests to climate change impacts and the strategies for adaptation and mitigation can be addressed with the kinds of tools being developed by the federal government and its research community.
I have an additional point with regard to sort of long-term impacts. The forests of western North America — Canada, British Columbia, Oregon, Washington, Idaho and California — have all been subject to 100-plus years of fire suppression. As a consequence, we have seen large buildups of predominantly coniferous, homogeneous landscapes. That was okay while the climate was benign, but with the shifts in climate we have seen the impacts of forest fires are now unprecedented across all of western North America.
The question around how we improve the security of communities and how we improve the long-term prospects for our forests in the face of climate change is a really big challenge. Again, this is one that is both international and interprovincial. The role of the federal government in addressing those kinds of issues through research is certainly something that can be done.
The Chair: After Dr. Martin responds to this one, I have another question for you regarding research and funding.
Mr. Kurz: Absolutely.
Ms. Martin: As was mentioned, the role of the feds is in creating innovation. Also, the mandate of forestry is much extended beyond a sustainable harvest and silviculture management. It includes wildlife and fisheries management, conservation of endangered species, recreation, watershed integrity, Indigenous and cultural values as well.
On the wildlife end of things, certainly 88 per cent of forest birds are migratory birds. Therefore, they are under the jurisdiction of the Migratory Bird Convention Act. One of its general goals is to keep common birds common. Protected areas will not be sufficient to look after in excess of 200 species of land birds that occupy these forests.
With that in mind, then, there are certainly incentives to look at ecological processes and principles in terms of forest management. We just mentioned the competition aspect of deciduous trees in terms of brushing, both chemical and physical. Yet, certainly, deciduous trees such as aspen and birch are nitrogen fixers. It’s not always clear that there actually is a strong competition angle but aspen and birch, in particular, are extremely important. They’re keystone structures for wildlife diversity.
For cavity-nesting birds we work on in the interior, 96 per cent of the 5,000 nests we found are in aspen. Aspen is critical. Aspen is not logged in this area. It’s only 15 per cent of the actual stems, but they provide significant services for water retention. At least they can probably provide many more aspects. Also, mature aspens suppress suckers. If you think about ecological principles, you could probably cut down your operating costs as well.
The Chair: That’s interesting. Coming back to research and federal funding for research, another fund was announced recently. The Canadian Agricultural Partnership was announced recently by the Honourable Lawrence MacAulay, Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada. It is a research-shared program over five years between the federal and provincial governments. I know it’s related to agriculture, but it’s a $3 billion pot over five years that was announced on February 28. Is there anything equivalent for forests that you are aware of?
Mr. Kurz: The federal government has both A class and C class funding for research. I am not aware of an announcement for forests of anywhere near that magnitude. As you know, under the Low Carbon Economy Fund there are a number of initiatives that will deal with forest carbon management. Five of the projects approved in four provinces will use activities in the forest sector to try to reduce the carbon footprint, but those are not directed toward research. They are directed toward the implementation of these activities.
The Chair: I think you have all reinforced in my mind that research will be a critical element as we move forward. What about some of the things that have been tried in the past? Dr. Wood, you made a point about how well the 40-year-old plantations will be adapted to what is currently occurring regarding climate change, so research would seem to me to be very critical.
Ms. Wood: Absolutely. The research I initiated on those plantations was with respect to wood quality and how it’s affected by climate change. It was funded through Natural Resource Canada. Not as large a pot is the Forest Innovation Program under the Canadian Wood Fibre Centre at Natural Resources Canada. This is where I’ve been funded for in the last few years for that type of research. We could definitely use more funding for that. There’s a limit on the number of applications they can fund. They typically don’t exceed $100,000 a year for a given research project. That’s about the scope I am working in right now.
The Chair: Probably multi-year would be a nice feature, as well as a larger amount of funds available for research. Both of those would be important.
Ms. Wood: Absolutely. Yes, the longer term is especially important.
Mr. Kurz: If you ask a scientist from a university or any other institution whether they have enough research funding, you know what the answer will be, no matter which country you are going to.
The Chair: I know that.
Mr. Kurz: What I think is unique in Canada and around the world is that many things are changing dramatically in response to climate change and the government’s commitment under the Paris agreement and other international commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Collectively, we will be spending hundreds of billions of dollars to address the impacts and the mitigation opportunities for climate change. One aspect that our research is trying to focus on is whether or not a fraction of the money addressed toward research can help increase the efficiency and the efficacy of these investments and demonstrate in the long term, through monitoring and research programs, that taxpayers are getting value for their money, both in terms of the initial choices in where investments are made and in terms of the long-term consequences.
As I showed you in one of the graphs, not all of the mitigation options being considered are equally effective. Not all of them are equally expensive or cheap. Helping the policy community through science distinguishes the outcomes and engages the stakeholder community in a dialogue around the outcomes and their desired future conditions. Whether it is resilience or biodiversity, presence or absence of deciduous species, et cetera, all these choices have implications for wood quality, carbon sinks, biodiversity, et cetera. Addressing these new questions will require research funding.
The Chair: That is exactly why I asked the question. Thank you very much for the answers.
On the second round, we have Senator Maltais.
[Translation]
Senator Maltais: Mr. Kurz, I see that your forestry regime in British Columbia is very different from the one in eastern Canada. I invite you to visit the forestry regime in New Brunswick and Quebec. They put it in place in New Brunswick 75 years ago — it must be said that it isn’t the Crown that owns it, but a private company — a totally innovative forestry policy. In another Parliament where I was responsible for Quebec’s forestry sector, we worked closely with the two provinces to ensure that we had an adequate forestry regime.
When I hear the expression “clear-cut” from scientists like you, my hair stands up on end because this no longer exists in eastern Canada. And the policy of one tree cut, one tree planted should apply here as well. This effort shouldn’t necessarily come from the government, but from those who derive benefits from it, that is, the companies.
Ontario has adopted a forestry policy similar to that of Quebec. There is no reason for clear-cutting in 2018. Nor is there a reason to wait for a generation of hardwood trees to grow and die before reforesting with original growth. There is no reason for it. I don’t understand the system you have, and I have to say that it doesn’t correspond to what we have in eastern Canada. I understand that British Columbia is very special because of its geography, climate, mountains and species there. But tell me one thing: is the BC government sensitive to what is happening in its forests?
[English]
Mr. Kurz: The analyses that we are conducting cover all provinces and territories of Canada including Quebec and New Brunswick. I am very familiar with the forest management practices in both provinces. We work closely with both provinces for some of the work we’re doing nationally. I believe that clear-cutting is still occurring in both provinces. Perhaps it is not at the same scale as it is in British Columbia, but it is a legitimate and appropriate forest management practice in certain environments.
In British Columbia, clear-cut logging is conducted with various intensities. There are various retention measures to protect areas for wildlife habitat and for other desired features.
The reason that not all forests in British Columbia are planted is the abundance of seeds and the presence of natural regeneration in the forests. For example, when you harvest in the winter under snow cover, there is the survival of seedlings that are already established.
Instead of strictly legislating that every hectare cut has to be planted, British Columbia is focusing on the outcome. As we discussed earlier, that is the free to grow notion. Foresters have to establish, within a few years, that a forest which meets certain requirements has been successfully regenerated on that site.
Planting is not always the preferred option because you may want to have the diversity of the natural seed source that is present. There is nothing that says natural trees are necessarily growing any more inferior to the planted trees. In some cases, you can have the advantages of natural trees re-establishing themselves. They’re often the same species.
Ms. Wood: I one thing to add. We are required to regenerate everything we cut. Over 95 per cent of our cutblocks are planted because there is recognition that it is faster than natural regeneration. Natural regeneration, actually, should be used a bit more than it is because it does increase diversity. The majority of our stands are replanted after harvest. We as a province currently plant more trees than are harvested on our land base.
Mr. Kurz: The trees being planted are selected for certain characteristics, such as enhanced growth rates, greater resilience to diseases and various other aspects that are part of the tree selection program, to ensure carbon sinks are established quickly.
Ms. Martin: I could also mention for wildlife the variable retention. Patches of old forest in areas that are cut can also work very well for a lot of the wildlife species. Then there are a number of inoperable and other mandates like removing lines of old forest along the roads, et cetera.
The complexity of this system and the fisheries guidelines where you leave forest for a certain number of metres along fish-bearing creeks, et cetera, covers the majority of wildlife species. It works pretty well to have that complexity of old forest patches in a younger matrix.
[Translation]
Senator Maltais: Let me stop you, Ms. Martin, but it has been around for 40 to 50 years in Quebec, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. So when it comes to clear-cutting, yes, but it is marked, that is, there are areas of protection for animals. There is no cutting within 90 metres of a watercourse to protect the watercourse and the fish in it. So that’s settled. But you told me one thing: you plant more trees than you cut. Where do you put them?
[English]
Ms. Wood: Some of it is from afforestation or reforesting land that was not previously forested. The other portion is that we plant at higher densities than we harvest at so that we can ensure the future density of the forest. Sometimes trees will be 1,600 stems per hectare planted, and then when they eventually grow up they’re less dense.
[Translation]
Senator Maltais: How long does it take for a fir, spruce or jack pine to reach normal maturity here? Forty, 50, 60 or 70 years?
[English]
Ms. Wood: It’s site dependent. In coastal areas it can be 40 years. In Prince George, northern B.C., where I am from, it’s close to 80 or 90 years.
[Translation]
Senator Maltais: That’s why I’m asking this question. In the east, a tree in its natural state is mature after 80 to 90 years with reforestation. I invite you to go see it at Irving and even in Quebec. Twenty-five years later, we are ready to cut again. Of course, there is forest maintenance and regular scarifying every year. We avoid... the forest can become a garden as much as in agriculture if properly maintained. You have extraordinary forests, it’s beautiful. This is recognized around the world outside of British Columbia. Even in China. We went to China to see the Canadian Wood Products Group. There is even a small Chinese neighborhood that is built with your wood. It’s beautiful. I think government efforts... you’re scientists of course, not politicians, but we’re politicians too, and we’re interested in ensuring that this forest plays its role as lungs in British Columbia. It’s your role in your research to make sure this is done.
You have given an interesting testimony, and I thank you very much. Thank you.
[English]
The Chair: Thank you.
Senator Gagné, you can have the last question.
Senator Gagné: I was wondering if any tree species are at risk of disappearing in Canada.
Ms. Martin: People say that black spruce is disappearing in Quebec, in the eastern boreal, and that climate change will change its vigor and growth.
Ms. Wood: I am not sure of across all of Canada, but in British Columbia our whitebark pine is a high elevation pine species that has a very mutualistic relationship with a nutcracker species of bird. It is becoming limited in range, potentially because of climate influences. Anytime the birds are impacted in that relationship, the trees are also impacted, and vice versa. That one I think is particularly sensitive.
With trembling aspen across the Prairies there are big problems with something going on there. We don’t know that it’s climate related, but there’s a good possibility it is.
Senator Gagné: How is Canada protecting those seeds from actually becoming extinct? Is there such a thing as a tree seed bank in Canada?
Ms. Wood: Yes, we have lots of seeds. Provincially we are big seed storers. I would assume the same thing happens at the national level.
Senator Gagné: I think of the seed bank in Norway. I was wondering if we were sending tree seeds to that particular bank, or do we have a specific bank for tree seeds?
Ms. Martin: That’s a good question to ask Sally Aitken this afternoon at UBC. She will have details.
Senator R. Black: If she doesn’t know, now she will.
The Chair: I thank the panel. It has been a great session. The hour and a half went very quickly, so obviously we were enthralled.
Ms. Martin: Thank you.
The Chair: We will now get ready to go out on our fact-finding mission.
(The committee adjourned.)