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Canada: Overview · Forests · Publications & Maps · News

Canada's Forests

Excerpts from Canada's Forests at a Crossroads: An Assessment in the Year 2000 (PDF)

In recent years, international attention has increasingly focused on the rapid conversion and degradation of the world’s tropical forests. Yet half of the remaining large tracts of natural forest are found in northern (or boreal) regions.

This report provides a first look at the scale and magnitude of development within Canada, one of the world’s major repositories of northern forests. Canada is home to over a third of the world’s boreal forest and a tenth of total global forest cover. Largely unsuited to agriculture, these forests have escaped widespread conversion to farmland and ranches—key threats in tropical regions. This northern frontier is rapidly being opened up for its timber, energy, and mineral resources. Logging is the dominant activity and a key sector in Canada’s economy; the forest industry generated over $68 billion in sales and $11 billion in wages in 1996.

Global Forest Watch (GFW) Canada—a network of regional and local environmental groups and First Nations—has set out to answer the four basic questions GFW addresses worldwide. 

• What large-scale development is occurring in forests, and where? 
  

• What environmental impacts and economic benefits does this development entail? 
  

• Who are the key actors engaged in these activities? 
  

• Are these activities compatible with legislation set out to promote forest stewardship? 

In this report, we present preliminary results, drawing largely on available data, but including new analysis derived by combining spatial (mapped) datasets through the use of Geographic Information Systems (GIS).

Some 94 percent of Canada’s forests are held in the public trust by federal and provincial governments. Polling data indicate Canadians most value forests for non-timber uses: for species habitat; for ecosystem services such as watershed protection and carbon storage; and for intrinsic wilderness value. However:

• 52 percent of forests are managed as logging tenures. In contrast, less than 8 percent of Canada’s forests are fully protected, although many new parks and reserves have been established in recent years.

• Of 10 major forest types, 6 have at least two thirds of their area allocated as logging tenure.

• Canada maintains its lead as the world’s biggest timber exporter through logging of old-growth and primary forests, which account for 90 percent of the harvest.

• Clearcuts make up over 80 percent of annual harvested area. Although economically efficient, clearcutting results in quite different disturbance patterns than fires and other natural processes. The ratio of clearcut area to the area using partial harvest systems has remained unchanged over the last two decades.

• 95 percent of all major forested watersheds include roads, mines, settlements, and other developments. These pose unquantified threats to watershed protection functions, carbon storage, and other ecosystem services provided by forests.

• Over half of the forests in 7 of Canada’s 10 major forest regions have been fragmented by roads and other access routes.

• About three-fifths of the eastern Carolinian forests and the Aspen forests bordering the prairies have been converted to agricultural and residential land.

• Coastal forests of British Colombia—home to one fifth of the world’s remaining temperate rainforest and noted for exceptional biodiversity— are under widespread development pressure. Over 80 percent of this forest has been allocated to logging companies (through tenure areas managed for timber harvest, which include extensive tracts of forest not destined for cutting). Nearly half the forest is fragmented by roads and access routes in blocks less than 200 km² in size.

Only 1 million of Canada’s 235 million hectares of commercial forest land are cut annually. However, this figure—because it factors in marginally productive lands and does not account for extensive areas affected by fires and other natural disturbance—understates the implications of current harvest rates.

• 50 percent of tenured areas face productivity limitations due to climate, topography, and other factors.

• Harvest quotas are often set above long-term sustainable yields. For example, in British Colombia, the leading provincial producer of timber, 90 percent of lands managed for harvest (timber supply areas) are logged above long-term sustainable levels set by the government.

Industry consolidation has resulted in the concentration of vast areas of forest in the hands of a few companies. These corporations—because of the revenues and jobs they control—are in a position to significantly influence provincial forest policies.

• 13 companies have holdings at least the size of Switzerland, accounting for over 48 percent of Canada’s forest tenure areas.

• About 80 percent of Canada’s First Nations and Métis live on reserves and communities in boreal or temperate forests. Although aboriginals hold extensive and longstanding claims to Canada’s forests (many unresolved), these areas are largely allocated to and managed by the private sector. Management for timber production often conflicts with First Nations’ rights and traditional holistic values toward forests.

Popularly viewed as an endless expanse of wilderness, the Boreal and Taiga (transition forests at the edge of the tundra) Forest Regions encompass almost 1.9 million km² in unfragmented blocks at least 10,000 km² in size. However, these forests are being opened up, primarily for energy and mineral resources, but also for timber. The potential impacts of these activities are unknown. Canada’s northernmost forests are particularly sensitive to development, in part because short growing seasons and fragile soils limit vegetation regrowth.

• At least 300 hydro dams, 80 active mines, and over 1,400 settlements are found in the Boreal and Taiga Forest Regions.

• 30 percent of the Boreal Forest Region is within a kilometer of a road or access route.

• Logging tenures now extend into Canada’s northernmost and most ecologically sensitive forests. Almost 50 percent of the Boreal Forest Region is under tenure.

This report includes an impressive list of new policies and initiatives established by Canadian governments to promote forest stewardship. It provides incomplete information—derived largely from independent review panels—on progress made in implementing these policies.

Information and data collected by Global Forest Watch Canada partners indicate declining public oversight over forests. Widespread cuts in government budgets and staffing have resulted in forest planning, management, and enforcement responsibilities being shifted increasingly to industry.

• As a result of cost-recovery policies, government datasets are often prohibitively expensive to noncommercial users.

• National datasets on productivity limitations, land ownership, aboriginal forest use, threatened species distributions, and compliance with management laws are either outdated or not systematically collected.

• There is no systematic monitoring of changes in forest condition—for example, where primary forests are being converted to secondary growth, which is useful for gauging the environmental tradeoffs development entails.

Global Forest Watch Canada seeks to work with government, industry, and other groups to make such data widely available and to promote informed decision making in favor of long-term planning and management driven by public interests.

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