Peter Shokeir | [email protected]
West Fraser shared the latest information on the mountain pine beetle, a 2023 herbicide proposal and more during an open house at Parks West Mall in Hinton on March 28.
The annual open house provides an opportunity for stakeholders to review and comment on West Fraser’s operational plans for the Hinton and Edson area.
“It’s a requirement (from the province) but just part of what we want to do to communicate with the public to see what is important to them and get feedback on our plans,” said Tyler Steneker, West Fraser’s woodlands manager for Hinton and Edson.
The open house featured posters and map displays with more broad information and handouts for in-depth detail, such as the one for 2023/24 general development plan for the Hinton and Edson forest areas.
“Everyone is interested in the landscape for different reasons and different things, whether it be hunting or trapping or just general recreation,” Steneker said.
“We get questions about all sorts of things, and again that’s why we’re here is to sort of promote what we do and educate folks and try and work together so we manage as best we can.”
One poster gave an update on how the Hinton and Edson area had previously experienced a significant increase in the mountain pine beetle.
This was due to a large beetle flight in 2018 with new beetles arriving from the north and west.
However, cold weather has caused the population to decline over the past two years with current populations in 2022 showing stable reproductive levels.
The levels of beetle in Jasper National Park have declined as the beetle has attacked most viable pine stands in the northern areas, even though some threat still remains in the south.
“It’s a relatively good news story for our area,” Steneker said.
“We certainly saw a lot of inflight from the national park there over a number of years. Fortunately, through our forest management and some cold winters, the numbers have really diminished to the point where it's hard to find green attacked trees now, which is great.
“But we’re still at the stage of making sure we go in and salvage the trees while they’re still usable before they fall down and rot.”
The open house also offered participants the chance to review the 2023/24 stand tending plan, including the proposal to use the herbicide glyphosate.
West Fraser asserts that herbicide is necessary since some trees in regenerative stands face competition from grass, herbaceous species, brush and aspen.
This could impede the survival of these trees, and mechanical tending using manual tools is not always feasible, making herbicide necessary.
“It’s one of the tools that’s used, but it’s not the failsafe by any means,” Steneker said.
“It’s not the first thing we jump to by any means. We’ve got a bunch of different things we do, so these different site preps, there’s a bunch of different techniques that go into that first. That’s step one, and then if the stands are really truly requiring it after we go through all the other tools in our toolbox, then that’s a tool that we use.”
The herbicide would be applied with aerial and backpack treatments.
