Canada is home to the world’s largest remaining stretches of intact forests. We need to act now to safeguard the long term health of our boreal forests. The global importance of the boreal forest that sweeps across Canada from coast to coast is underlined by one simple fact: our boreal forest region is more wild and intact than almost any other forest area on the face of the Earth.
Our boreal forest ecosystems provides essential ecological services that human society depends on such as:
- Purifying the air that we breathe and the water we drink
- Slowing the pace of climate change by being the largest terrestrial storehouse for carbon
With its thousands of lakes, streams, rivers and wetlands, old growth forests and huge number of habitat niches, Canada’s forest is home to countless songbirds, ducks and other birds, as well as numerous species of mammals – including the sensitive and rarely seen woodland caribou. In Canada, we are extremely lucky to still have large expanses of boreal forest that have not been profoundly changed by the impacts of resource extraction. We need to proactively protect these last great frontier forests for our health and the future of our children.
Take Action
Protect The Boreal Forests
Threats to the Forests
The greatest threat to Canada’s Boreal is industrial development and its effects, such as climate change. Although much of the forest is still relatively intact, industrial activities like logging, mining, and oil and gas development continue to eat away at our remaining wilderness areas.
Industrial Development
This leads to the damaging of wildlife habitat, fragmenting of the forests and wetlands with roads, seismic lines and other disturbances. This also increases human access to remote regions.
Contamination & Changes
Changing water and nutrient cycles. Humans causing contamination of the wilderness areas with toxic chemicals.
Saving the Forests
CPAWS Work
CPAWS is leading efforts to protect large portions of our remaining intact boreal forests by establishing large interconnected protected area networks. We are doing this by working closely with local communities and First Nations to establish new land use ideals that better balance the needs of our forests and its creatures with the needs for sustainable economic development, prosperous communities, and healthy people.
Our campaigns in the boreal forest are:
