Forest devestation...

I understand the topic of the Pine Beetle is always in the news, however, maybe there should be more said and done about this little beast. We drove from Harrison Hot Springs to Salmon Arm today and saw first hand the destruction caused by the beetle. un-real. There are places North of Merrit that could be considered total-loss. Complete tracts of land that are colored orange. If this was a forest fire that was causing the same degree of destruction, it would be considered Armageddon, I am sure. What happens now, when the needles fall off, the root systems rot and we are left with the unstable surface layers? On TV we see cataclysmic floods and landslides in Indonesia, India, etc. Is that what we are headed for? Or does the water cycle cease and we end up in true deserts with dunes and sagebrush? Wow.


I took this photo in Kamloops. Every pine tree in this already fragile eco-system has been killed.