Merchantable volume lost to logging, Mountain Pine Beetle and forest fire 2000-2019

When a BC forest products company is announcing another mill will curtail its operations or is closing permanently, the company will often link the change to the loss of "merchantable timber" that has resulted from the Mountain Pine Beetle outbreak or large forest fires. BC mainstream media make this claim often, too. Such loss of jobs are never linked to the extensive logging that has occurred. But the ministry of forests own data shows that logging accounted for 60.5 percent of the loss of merchantable timber between 2000 and 2019. The beetle caused 30.5 percent of the loss and fires the remaining 9 percent. The year-by-year account of those losses is shown below.