Enviros, Industry, Natives Unite for Canada's Northern Forests

OTTAWA, Ontario, December 1, 2003 (ENS) - A new coalition of Canadian conservation organizations, resource companies, and First Nations today proposed a plan to establish a network of large, interconnected, protected areas across at least half of Canada's northern forests.

The timber, mining, and oil companies, together with environmental groups and First Nations, jointly warned that protection and sustainable development practices are needed to safeguard this region from destructive resource development driven by U.S. consumption.

Known as the boreal region, forest areas of the northern North Temperate Zone are dominated by coniferous trees such as spruce, fir, and pine. Canada’s boreal region covers 53 percent of the country, spreading over the northern part of all provinces except Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. The region contains one-quarter of the world's remaining original forests.

Boreal owls like this one are nocturnal hunters and sit motionless in trees during the day. (Photo courtesy Borealforest.org)

"Today's announcement is an historic first step toward safeguarding one of the world's last great forests while still providing for extensive economic benefits from the region," said Cathy Wilkinson, director of the Canadian Boreal Initiative, the Ottawa based organization that convened the leadership council.

The 11 groups that helped develop and now endorse this shared vision are: Alberta-Pacific Forest Industries, the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society, the Deh Cho First Nation, Domtar Ltd., Ducks Unlimited Canada, ForestEthics, the Innu Nation, Poplar River First Nation, Suncor Energy, Tembec Inc., and the World Wildlife Fund of Canada. Together, they are the founding members of the Canadian Boreal Initiative's Boreal Leadership Council.

“Alberta-Pacific is very pleased to be an active participant in this bold vision,” said President and COO Bill Hunter. “We have been developing innovative management practices and nontraditional partnerships since the company was formed.”

Alberta-Pacific’s first action of commitment is to seek Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certification of its 5.8 million hectare Forest Management Agreement area, which lies entirely within the boreal forest of Alberta.

Elk are among the many mammals that inhabit Canada's boreal forest. (Photo courtesy Borealforest.org)

“WWF-Canada is proud to have played a lead role in seeing this special partnership come together and to sign on to this extraordinary vision for Canada’s environmental future,” says Monte Hummel, president and CEO of World Wildlife Fund Canada. “This country, indeed the world, has never seen such a diverse group of organizations come together with a common vision for an area of this size. It is a signal to Canadians that, where the environment is concerned, they can and should expect more of their leaders.”

Another Boreal Leadership Council member, the forest products company Tembec, achieved certification of two million hectares of its management area in April, the largest certification in Canadian history.

The Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society (CPAWS) sees the boreal forest as a "green cloak" that wraps the entire northern hemisphere spanning some 12,000 kilometers. "This makes it the biggest terrestrial ecosystem on Earth," says CPAWS. "Canada's portion is largely intact, making it the third largest forest left on the planet after the Amazon and the Siberian Shield of Russia."

Boreal forest landscape in Ontario (Photo courtesy Bird Studies Canada)

Much of the resource development in Canada's boreal region is driven by U.S. consumption, the Canadian Boreal Initiative said today. The United States is the leading importer of Canadian oil and gas, 60 percent of it produced from the boreal region.

Eighty-one percent of Canada's forest product exports go to the United States, and almost two-thirds of the wood cut in Canada's boreal region is used to make paper for catalogs, junk mail, magazines and newspapers.

In addition to establishing a network of large interconnected protected areas, the Framework proposes "the support of sustainable communities" through ecosystem based resource management practices and leading edge stewardship practices in the remaining landscape.

River meanders through Alberta's boreal forest. (Photo by Bruce Petersen courtesy CPAWS)

But boreal conservation was not on the agenda for Canada's federal, provincial and territorial environment ministers who wound up their annual meeting Wednesday in Victoria, British Columbia. The ministers agreed to work together to improve water and air quality, place more emphasis on children’s health and the environment, and address electronics waste and the potential impacts of climate change.

Wilkinson said that focus should be broadened to include Canada's northern forests. With more than 90 percent of the boreal region under public ownership, it will be important for governments to play a central role in making the Framework’s vision a reality, she said.

Canada's vast boreal forest and wetland region supports some of the world's largest populations of grizzly bears and wolves, and is used as breeding grounds for a third of the land birds and 40 percent of the waterfowl in North America.

But the Canadian Boreal Initiative warns that of the 298 bird species that have some of their breeding grounds in the boreal forest, at least 40 species of land birds and several species of ducks are already experiencing population declines due in part to habitat loss from logging and oil and gas development.

There is an answering initiative in the United States to protect Canada's boreal forest.

Marilyn Heiman, director of the Boreal Songbird Initiative, a Seattle based effort to educate Americans about the importance of the boreal forest, praised the Boreal Leadership Council for adopting the Boreal Forest Conservation Framework. "This agreement is a critically important step in ensuring that billions of birds we see at U.S. birdfeeders or migrating through our country will have ample vital breeding grounds up north that are not threatened by unchecked development," she said.

Recently, the American Bird Conservation Policy Council, representing 82 bird conservation groups, passed a resolution supporting the goals of the Boreal Forest Conservation Framework.

And this year’s Audubon Christmas Bird Count has adopted the boreal forest as its theme. Hundreds of thousands of bird watchers in the United States and Canada will keep an eye out for boreal forest birds such as warblers, woodpeckers, shrikes, sparrows, blackbirds, hawks and eagles

Map of Canada shows the boreal forest in green. More than 80 percent of the world’s unfrozen fresh water is found in the boreal forest. (Map courtesy CPAWS)