CANADA BOREAL

Canada’s boreal forest is central to the country’s natural environment, history, culture and economy. Canada respects and looks after its boreal forest in many ways, including by setting aside legally protected areas, conducting scientific research and monitoring the state of the forests.

• Is the world’s largest intact forest ecosystem. It stretches across 1.2 billion acres (485 million hectares) of northern Canada, from the Yukon to Newfoundland and Labrador.

• Represents 25 percent of the world’s remaining intact forest, even more than the Amazon rain forest.

• Contains 25 percent of the world’s wetlands.

• Includes more surface freshwater—about 200 million acres (81 million hectares)—than anywhere else on Earth.

• Is North America’s bird nursery. Each year, 1 billion to 3 billion birds migrate north from the United States—and from as far away as South America—to nest in Canada’s boreal forest. Between 3 billion and 5 billion return south each fall after a successful breeding season.

• Stores twice as much carbon per acre as tropical rain forests. In all, Canada’s boreal forests and peatlands lock in a minimum of 229 billion tons of carbon. Peatlands, also known as bogs and fens, are wetlands that include vegetation such as sphagnum mosses, shrubs, and spruce. This natural carbon storage helps cool the planet and provides a critical bulwark against climate change.

• Is home to some of the cleanest and deepest freshwater lakes on the planet. Great Bear Lake, in the Northwest Territories, is considered the world’s largest unpolluted lake. Great Slave Lake, also in the Northwest Territories, is North America’s deepest.

Canada’s laws protect the boreal forest and ensure its sustainability

About 94% of Canada’s forests are on publicly owned land, which enables the government to regulate harvesting practices and apply land-use planning through legislation and other policies.

Sustainable forest management ensures that Canada’s forests are healthy, safe and thriving. It is a way of managing forests with the goal of balancing the environmental, social and economic benefits they provide over time.

Parks and protected areas maintain boreal forest landscapes, safeguard their biodiversity and provide key information for scientific research.

Harvesting in Canada's boreal forest is done sustainably

Many harvesting practices in the boreal forest now imitate natural disturbances. These practices, based on scientific research, are meant to better mimic the effect of natural forces – such as fire and insect outbreaks – that help the forest renew itself. Such harvesting practices also address other forest management goals.

Provincial laws require that all areas harvested on public land be either replanted or allowed to naturally grow back to set standards.

Harvesting trees does not cause deforestation: harvested areas regrow. An area with very young trees is still a forest. The term “deforestation” refers to land that has been cleared of trees and permanently converted to another use.

Scientific research on the boreal forest informs maps, management planning and policies

A large-scale review of scientific literature about the boreal zone was recently completed by Canadian Forest Service researchers (link to new boreal synthesis papers) Decision-makers can use this and other research to inform policy and planning.

A map of the boreal zone in North America was recently created by Canadian Forest Service researchers using the most current information available, consistent criteria and well-defined terms. This map, and its related statistics, is the first update of the boreal zone in nearly 40 years. The map gives scientists, governments and others a common tool for discussing the boreal region, and serves as a scientific baseline for defining the boreal zone in North America.

Banff National Park is Canada's oldest national park, established in 1885. Located in Alberta's Rocky Mountains, 110–180 kilometres (68–112 mi) west of Calgary, Banff encompasses 6,641 square kilometres (2,564 sq mi) of mountainous terrain, with many glaciers and ice fields, dense Boreal coniferous forest, and alpine landscapes. The Icefields Parkway extends from Lake Louise, connecting to Jasper National Park in the north. Provincial forests and Yoho National Park are neighbours to the west, while Kootenay National Park is located to the south and Kananaskis Country to the southeast. The main commercial centre of the park is the town of Banff, in the Bow River valley.

The Canadian Pacific Railway was instrumental in Banff's early years, building the Banff Springs Hotel and Chateau Lake Louise, and attracting tourists through extensive advertising. In the early 20th century, roads were built in Banff, at times by war internees from World War I, and through Great Depression-era public works projects. Since the 1960s, park accommodations have been open all year, with annual tourism visits to Banff increasing to over 5 million in the 1990s. Millions more pass through the park on the Trans-Canada Highway. As Banff has over three million visitors annually, the health of its ecosystem has been threatened. In the mid-1990s, Parks Canada responded by initiating a two-year study which resulted in management recommendations and new policies that aim to preserve ecological integrity.

Banff National Park has a subarctic climate with three ecoregions, including montane, subalpine, and alpine. The forests are dominated by Lodgepole pine at lower elevations and Engelmann spruce in higher ones below the treeline, above which is primarily rocks and ice. Mammal species such as the grizzly bear, cougar, wolverine, elk, bighorn sheep and moose are found, along with hundreds of bird species. Reptiles and amphibians are also found but only a limited number of species have been recorded. The mountains are formed from sedimentary rocks which were pushed east over newer rock strata, between 80 and 55 million years ago. Over the past few million years, glaciers have at times covered most of the park, but today are found only on the mountain slopes though they include the Columbia Icefield, the largest uninterrupted glacial mass in the Rockies. Erosion from water and ice have carved the mountains into their current shapes.

Jasper National Park is a national park in Alberta, Canada. It is the largest national park within Alberta's Rocky Mountains spanning 11,000 km (4,200 sq mi). Its location is north of Banff National Park and west of Edmonton. The park contains the glaciers of the Columbia Icefield, springs, lakes, waterfalls and mountains.

Jasper was named after Jasper Hawes, who operated a trading post in the region for the North West Company. The park was established on September 14, 1907, as Jasper Forest Park, and was granted national park status in 1930, with the passing of the National Parks Act. The Grand Trunk Pacific (GTP) and Canadian Northern (CNoR) railways built through the park, and in 1911 the GTP founded the town of Fitzhugh, which was renamed to Jasper in 1913. Road access from Edmonton was opened in 1928. In 2014, Jasper National Park had 2,154,711 visitors.

The park was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1984, together with the other national and provincial parks that form the Canadian Rocky Mountain Parks, for the mountain landscapes containing mountain peaks, glaciers, lakes, waterfalls, canyons, and limestone caves as well as fossils found here

Torngat Mountains National Park is a Canadian national park located on the Labrador Peninsula in the province of Newfoundland and Labrador. The park encompasses 9,700 km² (3,700 sq mi; 2,400,000 acres) of mountainous terrain between Northern Québec and the Labrador Sea. Set in the Torngat Mountains, the name comes from the Inuktitut word Tongait, meaning "place of spirits". It contains the highest mountains in Mainland Canada east of the Rockies. The subarctic Torngat Mountains are the Inuit homeland, a treasure trove of the powerful stories, spirits and traditions of centuries of travellers.

An area called Torngat Mountains National Park Reserve was set aside with enactment of the Labrador Inuit Land Claims Agreement on December 1, 2005, with the intention of creating a national park. When the Nunavik Inuit Land Claims Agreement came into effect on July 10, 2008, the park was officially established, and the National Park Reserve became Torngat Mountains National Park, the first in Labrador. The park covers 9,700 square kilometres (3,700 sq mi), extending from Cape Chidley south to Saglek Fjord. It is the largest national park in Atlantic Canada and the southernmost national park in the Arctic Cordillera.

This park protects wildlife (caribou, black bears, wolf packs, two species of fox, polar bears, peregrine falcon, and golden eagle among others), while offering wilderness-oriented recreational activities (hiking, scrambling, kayaking).

Gros Morne National Park is a Canadian national park and World Heritage Site located on the west coast of Newfoundland. At 1,805 km (697 sq mi), it is the second largest national park in Atlantic Canada after Torngat Mountains National Park, which has an area of 9,700 km (3,700 sq mi).

The park takes its name from Newfoundland's second-highest mountain peak (at 806 m or 2,644 ft) located within the park. Its French meaning is "large mountain standing alone," or more literally "great sombre." Gros Morne is a member of the Long Range Mountains, an outlying range of the Appalachian Mountains, stretching the length of the island's west coast. It is the eroded remnants of a mountain range formed 1.2 billion years ago. In 1987, the park was awarded World Heritage Site status by UNESCO because "The park provides a rare example of the process of continental drift, where deep ocean crust and the rocks of the earth's mantle lie exposed."^[1]

The Gros Morne National Park Reserve was established in 1973, and was made a national park on October 1, 2005.

Wood Buffalo is Canada’s largest national park. Covering more territory than Switzerland, it sprawls across northeastern Alberta and juts into the southern part of the Northwest Territories. Designated a UNESCO World Heritage site, it is home to one of the last remaining free-roaming wood bison herds in the world, the nesting habitat for endangered whooping cranes, and the world’s largest beaver dam.

• Flyway Central The southern portion of the park features the Peace-Athabasca Delta, one of the largest inland freshwater deltas in the world. All four North American flyways converge over the delta each spring and fall. The last remaining flock of migratory whooping cranes nests in a remote corner of the boreal forest every summer.

• Protected Area In 1982, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) recognized Wood Buffalo for protecting the Peace-Athabasca Delta and the whooping crane nesting area. The two areas were designated as Ramsar sites under the Ramsar Convention, which focuses on identifying and protecting critical habitat for migratory birds.

• Landscape The park’s varied landscape includes boreal forest, salt plains, and gypsum karst landforms. The boreal plains near the Northwest Territories town of Fort Smith are the most accessible and popular area of the park. Day hikes take visitors through boreal forests of spruce, jackpine, aspen, and poplar to see salt flats, underground streams, sinkholes, and saline streams.