Consuming Canada's Boreal Forest: The chain of ... - Greenpeace

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Boreal Forest and
Climate Change
Greenpeace
Canada’s Boreal Forest is a giant store-
house of 47.5 billion tons of carbon—seven
times the amount of the entire world’s
annual fossil fuels emissions. 1 In fact, the
forest stores between seven and eleven
per cent of the world’s terrestrial biospheric
carbon. 2 Temperate and tropical forests,
with a few exceptions, store most of their
carbon in live tree tissues but an average
of 84 per cent of the carbon in boreal
forests is found in the soil. 3 When forests
are logged these soils are disturbed and
dry out, 4 releasing large amounts of greenhouse
gases, including carbon dioxide (CO 2 ),
into the atmosphere. 5
The United Nations’ Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) says
that as much as 25 per cent of the world’s
greenhouse gas emissions come from
forestry and deforestation, with logging,
mining and agriculture expansion accounting
for much of this. 6 In Canada, the
impacts of logging are significant.
Additionally, some forest stands take more
than a century to recover to preharvest carbon
storehouse levels after logging. 7, 8 As
old and ancient forest areas in the southern
Boreal Forest continue to be the focus of
logging activity, carbon stocks are diminished.
Older forests hold more carbon in
their trees and soils. 9 Logging and other
forms of development in Canada’s forests,
including the Boreal Forest, have a significant
impact on the country’s emissions.
As natural ecological processes are
best maintained by forest areas that are
intact, large-scale protection of the Boreal
Forest is needed, particularly in the face
of increasing climate change. Already the
impacts of climate change are being felt
in the Boreal Forest, with species migration
and increases in the scale and frequency
of insect infestations, drought and forest
fires leading to significant change. 10, 11, 12
We now know that forest areas that are
intact are better equipped to mitigate
these impacts.
Additionally, scientists now fear that
the steady rise in the temperature of the
atmosphere and the drying of the Boreal
Forest could lead to increased forest fires
and a catastrophic release of carbon diox-
ide from the storehouses of the peatlands
and soils of the forest, further worsening
climate change.
“Climate Change threatens the
basic elements of life for people
around the world—access to water,
food production, health and use of
land and the environment.” 13
“Action to preserve the remaining
areas of natural forest is needed
urgently. Large scale pilot schemes
are required to explore effective
approaches to combining national
action and international support.” 14
— The Economics of Climate Change:
The Stern Review, 2007
Consuming Canada's Boreal Forest: The chain of destruction from logging companies to consumers