Last year wood and paper products made up nearly a third of British Columbia's total exports and brought in about $9 billion. Leaving nothing to chance, the government is now embarking on the largest assisted-migration project in history by moving some 250,000 larch seedlings up to 200 miles outside the species’ native range. The hope is that even if its old territory eventually becomes inhospitable, as experts predict it will, the larch and other trees will thrive in their new homes, and so will British Columbia’s economy.
The move comes as climatic changes are exacerbating threats to forests in the region. Over the past decade, mountain pine beetles, boosted by mild winters, have devastated tens of millions of acres of forest across the American and Canadian West, and summer droughts have destroyed many more. A report by the Canadian government predicts that in the future, such droughts will become longer ...
