MCLEOD LAKE, BC — In just three years, much of the McLeod Lake Indian Band’s treaty lands were stripped of their bountiful and valuable trees in a surge of logging that included one clearcut almost 3,000 hectares in size. The extensive logging by the band of its own treaty lands has left two former band councillors questioning why so much forest vanished so quickly. Defenders of the logging say that beetle infestations made the speed and scale of the logging necessary. But it’s not clear how much of the timber removed had been degraded by beetles, and some scientists say that not immediately clearcutting such forests will allow them to recover, while still maintaining healthy habitat for plants and animals. …Just how much of a threat this posed is unknown. Neither the band nor the provincial government have posted any information quantifying the alleged damage done by the insects, and with those forests now all logged it’s impossible to tell.