The forestry company Boisaco believes that it is now too late to harvest the wood burned north of the Pipmuacan reservoir after Quebec banned its harvest last November.
Boisaco expects that snags left by wildfires are now infested with the longhorned beetle, an insect that feeds and reproduces in burned wood. However, the company did not assess the state of the 350,000 cubic meters of burned wood that it planned to harvest, the equivalent of two-thirds of the volume it processes annually.
Last November, following public consultations, the Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry banned the harvesting of burned wood north of the Pipmuacan reservoir because a protected area project is being created there.
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The president of Boisaco, Steeve St-Gelais, says he understands this decision but deplores it all the same. He argues that harvesting dead wood would have been more viable in the long term for the forest.
If, for example, the planned protected area project were to be confirmed, [la récolte de bois brûlé] wouldn’t stop it. It would just have put a forest back into regeneration mode, he says. According to him, the harvest of burned wood would have allowed the development of forest roads which could then have been used during reforestation work.
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Steeve St-Gelais would have harvested the burned wood to promote the regeneration of the forest, even if it is more expensive. (Archive photo)
Photo : Radio-Canada
This harvest, however, would have cost Boisaco more. Financially, that would have penalized us a little. It is clear that these volumes were further north and there were significant efforts to make to achieve this recovery, explains Steeve St-Gelais.
In a purely financial logic, in a short-term horizon, we would have said: “No, we don’t want to, we prefer not to go.” But in the long term, with a vision of the sustainability of the forest, we found it desirable to make this effort. We would have done it, but unfortunately, it was not possible, he adds.
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Collecting burned wood in the Normétal sector
Photo : Radio-Canada / Vincent Rességuier
Boisaco was still able to recover 10,000 cubic meters of burned wood north of Sacré-Cœur. The company says it has harvested approximately the same volume of wood in 2023 as usual, despite last summer’s forest fires.
Pessamit did not respond today, but in the past, those responsible for the protected area project have spoken out against the harvest of burned wood around the Pipmuacan reservoir. They have already argued that the development of logging roads disrupts the caribou ecosystem and increases predation by wolves.
The ministry had not yet responded to Radio-Canada’s interview request at the time of writing.
2024-02-07 23:32:23
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