It’s a potential silver lining to B.C.’s devastating, record-setting wildfire season: a possible boom in the tree-planting industry.
Fires have scorched more than 1.2 million hectares across the province since April 1, the largest area since B.C. began keeping wildfire records.
Those fires have cost hundreds of millions of dollars and caused plenty of heartache, but they could also mean more jobs – though not immediately.
“It takes time to grow seedlings, so we won’t see huge increases into 2018, but into 2019 and beyond we’ll definitely see numbers coming up,” said John Lawrence, CEO with Brinkman and Associates Reforestation.
Lawrence’s company employs about 350 people, and he said province-wide between 4,000 and 6,000 people make their living through planting.
He said replanting fire-ravaged areas could both boost those numbers, and potentially extend the planting season for people already in the industry.
“Typically if there is a salvage logging operation that takes some time. In some of these areas they’ll want to do some assessments because in some areas natural regrowth of the forest will be an important component and we wouldn’t necessarily need to move too quickly on planting, we’d want to see how that comes about first.”
With potential large-scale planting operations on the horizon, Lawrence added it is a chance for the province to implement a smart forest policy that could help protect both trees and communities in the future.
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With potential large-scale planting operations on the horizon, Lawrence added it is a chance for the province to implement a smart forest policy that could help protect both trees and communities in the future.
“Planning on the landscape needs to take into account large scale events like pine beetle, like fire, which seem to be increasing in recent years,” he said.
Replanted areas could, for example, build natural fire breaks into them that could help stop the spread of future wildfires, Lawrence said.
The Ministry of Forests, Lands, and Natural Resources says it’s looking to fast track salvage logging permits for fire-ravaged areas – with forestry companies responsible for replanting areas they clear.
It says it has also committed $140 million to wildfire risk reduction and reforestation through its 2017-2018 budget update.
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