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A stampede to harvest pine beetle-killed lumber in interior British Columbia has resulted in gaping clear-cuts that flout recommendations made at the beginning of the salvage effort in 2004, says a new report from the B.C. Forest Practices Board.

And those openings, some of which are visible in satellite images, will result in increased risks of flooding, reduced wildlife habitat and loss of biodiversity, says the head of the watchdog agency.

“It means that the risks that the chief forester was recommending we avoid, are now going to occur,” Forest Practices Board chairman Bruce Fraser said yesterday.

The province is reviewing the report and expects to implement all of its recommendations, including immediate action on “landscape-level” planning, provincial Forests Minister Pat Bell said.

The study, released yesterday, looked at harvesting in areas around Burns Lake, Prince George and Quesnel. It concluded that enough old forest remained to meet the 2004 recommendations, but only if the government acts quickly. When harvest levels were hiked by as much as 80 per cent in 2004 to help salvage dead pine trees, B.C.'s chief forester recommended professional foresters develop “landscape-level plans” setting out where trees would be cut and where some would stay standing.

The board found those recommendations were being followed in individual cutblocks, but not on a larger scale. A growing number of cutblocks are bigger than 250 hectares and at least seven cover more than 10,000 hectares, or 100 square kilometres.

Pine-beetle-killed wood has a limited “shelf life” before it's too damaged to be turned into lumber. Provincial officials and community leaders also worry about fire risk posed by thousands of square kilometres of dry, dead wood.

But forestry experts also recognize the benefits of leaving some dead trees behind, in part based on a spruce-bark beetle outbreak in the Bowron River Valley in the 1980s.

It triggered a massive logging operation and a 33,000-hectare patch that became known as the “clear-cut you could see from space.”

Studies suggest it would have been a good idea to retain more trees in that salvage operation, the report says. Standing dead trees can help prevent flooding by providing shade cover and avoiding overly rapid snow melt, and provide habitat for birds and animals as replacement trees mature.

“The chief forester said about 25 per cent should be left on the landscape, and we're not doing that,” Mr. Fraser said. “We're not doing anything close.”

The province's current push to develop green energy, including bio-energy projects that use beetle-killed wood, makes landscape-level planning even more important, he added.

The province can get back on track and meet the 2004 recommendations, Mr. Bell said.

“We are not at the point where we have exceeded the original criteria,” he said.

The report describes significant gaps in how B.C. is tracking the stepped-up logging, saying the province was unable to provide an accurate tally of what was being cut and what was being left behind.

The board expressed concerns about government's inability to track wildlife tree reserves as early as 2001 and again in 2004. Since then, improvements have been made, but “incomplete and inconsistent” reporting remains a problem, the report says.