Sask. puts more cash toward fighting pine beetles in northern Alta.

Saskatchewan has approved another $300,000 toward the continued implementation of a strategy to try and stop the spread ofabeetle that has devastatedforests further west.

That bringsthe amount of cash available from Saskatchewanto fight the mountain pine beetle in northern Alberta this fiscal year to $800,000 total.

The mountain pine beetle affected forests inBritish Columbia with particularly bad outbreaks in the '80s and '90s,and has spread into Alberta. It's native to Canada but is spreading beyond its historicgeographic range and into the boreal forest.

There are about 34,000,000 hectares of boreal forest in Saskatchewan, with 11.7 million of those hectares falling in the commercial forest zone. Forestry is the second largest industry in northern Saskatchewan, accounting for nearly $1 billion in forest product sales in 2016.

The governments of Alberta and Saskatchewan have been involved in multi-year agreementswhere Saskatchewanhelps with the control of the beetles in Alberta, particularly in the northeastern area from Fort McMurray to Lac La Biche.

Early detection through surveying the trees, and removal of infected trees is part of how the beetles' spread is being controlled.

"You cut it down and you burn it that's the only thing you can do with it," said RoryMcIntosh, forest and insect disease expert for Saskatchewan's Ministry of Environment.

McIntosh said the beetle has not yet crossed into Saskatchewan's boreal forestbut a beetle was found in a baited tree within 38 kilometres of the provincial borderon the Cold Lake weapons range, which also stretches into Saskatchewan.

"It was a single beetle in a single tree and it wasn't doing very well," McIntosh said, adding baited trees are used to monitor the bugs.

"But the point is beetles are in the forest that close to our border and that's part of the purpose of what we're doing."

McIntoshsaid the more that can be invested to knock the beetle down and back in Alberta, the better the opportunity to slow the spread. The more reactive measure of controlling it once it's in the province would be more costly, he added.

According to Natural Resources Canada, long-distance dispersal of the beetle more than 100 km has been documented with ideal weather conditions.

B.C.'s experience

The pestravaged the forests of B.C.,affectingmore than 18,000,000 hectares of forest.

KatherineBleiker, a research scientist whostudies the biology and ecology of bark beetles, including the mountain pine beetle, for the Pacific Forestry Centre in B.C, saidthe buglargely affectedlodge pole pines in B.C.due to theirabundance, but that the mountain pine beetle will infest mostpine species.

"We have a large timber industry and we lost over half of our mature lodge pole pine, which was our number one commercial species in our province. So, it had a huge impact," Bleiker said of the beetle's effect.

She said lower populations of the beetles might not kill trees,but that alsomakes themharder to detect.

Bleiker said the forests out west are recovering. She addedthat the effects a beetle infestation will haveon a boreal forest after recovery are still unknown.