Saskatchewan has approved another $300,000 toward the continued implementation of a strategy to try and stop the spread of a beetle that has devastated forests further west. That brings the amount of cash available from Saskatchewan to fight the mountain pine beetle in northern Alberta this fiscal year to $800,000 total. The mountain pine beetle affected forests in British 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 historic geographic 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.