Environmentalists sound alarm about Canada’s boreal forest

[Joe Shlabotnik]

Propose minimum 50% of Canada's Boreal Forests should be permanently protected.

Encompassing more than half of Canada’s 9.9-million-sq.-km landmass, the boreal forest is described by the volunteer panel as “one of the world’s greatest natural treasures” and — along with the Siberian boreal forest and the Amazon rainforest — as one of the last three significant stretches of forested land on Earth that has “never been touched by the large-scale footprint of human industrial expansion.”

But forestry, mining and energy projects across Canada — including Alberta’s oilsands — are transforming huge swaths of the boreal frontier, destroying wildlife habitat, disrupting ancient animal migration patterns, threatening water quality and generally compromising ecosystems, the panel warns.

The researchers cite studies showing that some 730,000 square kilometres of Canada’s boreal forest — about one-eighth of the total, or an area “larger than Texas” — is “already affected by these industries and their infrastructure,” including roads and hydroelectric dams.

While the panel says conservation initiatives “should accommodate Aboriginal traditional uses of the land and should be managed or co-managed by Aboriginal governments,” it also states that ecological protection zones should also be “enshrined in civic institutions” so that environmental commitments “cannot be changed to accommodate short-term political pressures and sensitivities.”

http://www.vancouversun.com/technology/environment/Environmentalists+sound+alarm+about+Canada+boreal/8689638/story.html

[NoMoreWarNow]

1. should be done not just in Canada!

[wtmusic]

2. Out of sight, out of mind

so K&R.

[OKIsItJustMe]

3. Most flammable boreal forests in North America become more so

http://news.illinois.edu/news/13/0722flammable_forests_FengShengHu.html

[font face=Serif][font size=5]Most flammable boreal forests in North America become more so[/font]

7/22/2013 | Diana Yates, Life Sciences Editor | 217-333-5802; [e-mail]

[font size=3]CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — A 2,000-square-kilometer zone in the Yukon Flats of interior Alaska – one of the most flammable high-latitude regions of the world, according to scientists – has seen a dramatic increase in both the frequency and severity of fires in recent decades. Wildfire activity in this area is higher than at any other time in the past 10,000 years, the researchers report.

The new findings add to the evidence that relatively frequent and powerful fires are converting the conifer-rich boreal forests of Alaska into deciduous woodlands. Deciduous trees, which shed their leaves in autumn, are more resistant to burning than the black spruce and white spruce that once dominated the Yukon Flats. Whether the shift to deciduous forests will overcome the fire-inducing effects of a warming climate remains to be seen, the researchers said.

A paper describing the study appears in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

“We reconstructed the fire history by picking charcoal fragments out of sediments preserved over thousands of years,” said University of Illinois doctoral student Ryan Kelly, who led the study with Illinois plant biology professor Feng Sheng Hu. “And from what we can tell, the fire frequency at present is higher than it has been at any time in the past 10,000 years.”

…[/font][/font]

http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1305069110