WHEN PREDICTIONS COME TRUE

The Forest Scene, October 1981 headline reads:

" Beetles threaten B.C. pine trees"

"British Columbia will spend $11.4 million in an emergency effort to destroy rampaging beetles which forest ministry officials fear could wipe out B.C.'s entire mature stock of commercial pine trees worth $13 billion."

By 1981 500,000 hectares were chewed and 2.5 million hectares were threatened in the Caribou, Nelson, Prince George and Prince Rupert areas.

Mountain Pine Beetle , Dendroctonus ponderosae.

Tree host : Lodgepole pine and ponderosa pine

The only treatment listed in 1982 was "sanitation cutting". The other possible treatments that could be used were listed as preventative management: shortened rotation, type conversion, mixed species stands, age and species mosaics, partial cuts and stocking control.

Sanitation cutting = removing single infested trees to control the spread.

IT SEEMS LIKE THE PREDICTION CAME TRUE
The more current size of the infestation/damage of the Mountain Pine Beetle just in British Columbia:

      " "The cumulative area of B.C. affected to some degree  is estimated at 17.5 million hectares. " the B.C. Ministry of Forests, Land and Natural Resource Operations  circa 2009.

"...over 40 million acres (160,000 km²) of BC's forests affected", says Wikipedia.

Jan. 18, 2012 : The 2011 Report shows an increase of 2 million hectares over 2010 total for the Boreal Forest. That makes a grand total of 15.2 million hectares now infected with the Mountain Pine Beetle.

CARBON PREDICTION

Another little prediction this time from Wikipedia:

 ." They concluded by 2020, the pine beetle outbreak will have released 270 megatonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere from Canadian forests. "

Lots of good Sites are on the Web and lots of maps showing where the little bugs are now.

Just search for the Mountain Pine Beetle.