Why Canada’s boreal forest is gaining international attention

The green ribbon that makes up 75 per cent of Canada’s forests is among the largest intact wildernesses on the planet. Environmentalists call it ‘one of the last great conservation opportunities.’ What do we need to do to save the boreal? As the world’s ecological crisis becomes better understood, the boreal forest is becoming somewhat of a celebrity because of one jaw-dropping stat: the Canadian boreal represents 25 per cent of the planet’s remaining intact forest, leading the world alongside the Amazon. What’s more, around 80 per cent of Canada’s boreal is still relatively intact — a rare thing in today’s world. But the boreal is facing threats from logging, mining, fires, pests and the many ways those factors interact with climate change. “We have to recognize that this is one of the last great conservation opportunities in human evolution on Earth,” says Jeff Wells, science and policy director for the Boreal Songbird Initiative. The boreal is one of our best hopes for mitigating the effects of climate change and keeping the Earth habitable. Yet it also houses huge deposits of oil and gas and minerals. The decisions being made to protect or exploit it could have repercussions for […]

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