1,500 scientists from around the world say Canada needs to protect its Boreal Forest to preserve wildlife, water and to fight global warming.
Scientists says at least half must be protected, up from 10% now, and the rest needs to be carefully managed, particularly in the face of pressure from logging, mining and oil and gas operations.
An area the size of Florida, for example, is slated to be developed for Canada’s tar sands reserves. Canada’s Boreal Forest stretches from the Alaskan border to Newfoundland, and is one of largest intact forest-and-wetland ecosystems remaining on earth.
The mainly coniferous forest is the single largest terrestrial carbon storehouse in the world, supports 3 billion migratory songbirds, the world’s largest caribou herds and large populations of bears, wolves, lynx and fish.
“We are losing so many of the world’s great forests, despite the best efforts of conservationists,” said University of Alberta ecologist David Schindler.
“Canada’s Boreal Forest offers what may be our last, best chance to do things right, but only if our leaders act decisively and act now.”
Professor Terry Root of Stanford University emphasized that especially in the face of global warming, survival of a wide range of species depends on a stable forest system.
“One of the ways that we can help species survive is to give them a place where there are very few stresses, such as habitat fragmentation and invasive species.”
Meanwhile, deforestation in the tropics accounts for nearly 20% of carbon emissions, according to Pep Canadell of the international scientific body Global Carbon Project and the CSIRO Division of Marine and Atmospheric Research.
“If by 2050 we slow deforestation by 50 percent from current levels…this would save the emission of 50 billion tonnes of carbon into the atmosphere,” he said.
The aim was also to stop deforestation when 50 percent of the world’s tropical forests remained. This would avoid the release of the equivalent of six years of global fossil fuel emissions, Canadell said.
The findings were published on Friday in the international journal Science from the first study of its kind by Canadell, of Australia’s government-backed Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, and an international team of experts from the United States, Britain, Brazil and France.
Tropical deforestation released 1.5 billion tonnes of carbon each year into the atmosphere, the study showed.
“This will release an estimated 87 to 130 billion tonnes of carbon by 2100, which is greater than the amount of carbon that would be released by 13 years of global fossil fuel combustion,” Canadell said.
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