Prescribed burns not way to stop beetles
Re Beetles may have fuelled B.C. wildfires, experts say, Sept. 23
This article mainly focused on the aftermath of the mountain pine beetle epidemic, so I would like to share my opinion about the root cause of this disaster and why it is risky to control beetles by inducing a prescribed burn.
A healthy and stable ecosystem is able to keep the population of every species in balance. In this case, there is barely any chance for a pest attack to happen.
On the contrary, ecosystems with poor biodiversity tend to be unstable and less tolerant to changes in the surrounding environment. That is why beetles in B.C. could eat up all the pine forests, leaving dead trees that boost wildfires.
The damage caused by these pine beetles sufficiently verifies that the forest ecosystem is already too fragile to resist external threats.
Therefore, prescribed burns could be riskier than we thought in terms of suppressing beetles, since it might reduce the biodiversity of the ecosystem and lead to worse consequences.
Yifei Jia, Toronto
Removing the dead trees affected by the pine beetles sounds like an effective short-term strategy to combat wildfires. However, these efforts would go to waste if the beetles continued to ravage other trees.
Efforts should instead be focused on preventing the beetles from affecting any more trees. The beetle population should be contained.
Another possible solution could be to replace the dead trees with different species of trees that are less susceptible to the beetles. These new trees could serve as a deterrent to beetles and other pests that target only one tree species.
Mithun Patgunarajah, Toronto
Dead or alive, the forests of B.C. are home to numerous species and need to be preserved.
Trees ravaged by the mountain pine beetle infestation remain vital not only to the multitude of species that inhabit the area, but also to the land, as their decomposition returns nutrients to the soil in which they resided.
While live trees many not burn as easily as their dead counterparts, both still provide fuel for fires.
Clearing these trees would only cause further ecosystem damage, threaten species conservation and decrease soil quality.
Sabrina Mazzucco, Toronto