CPAWS’ efforts to protect our country’s amazing wilderness on land in our oceans and great freshwater lakes are vital in the face of climate change. As global warming increases, protecting large connected wilderness areas will be critical for many species, including humans, who will be forced to adapt. And the carbon stored in our forests and beneath our waters can actually slow the rate of climate change.
Canada’s Boreal forest stores about 186 billion tons of carbon, mostly within soils and peatlands. But when this carbon is released into the atmosphere by logging, mining, peat extraction, oil and gas and hydro-electric development, it contributes to global warming
By protecting large tracts of wilderness, Canada will:
After habitat loss, climate change is the biggest threat to biodiversity. In fact, 20-30% of species are at increased risk of extinction as climate change proceeds. Industrial development in the Boreal forest is fragmenting habitat and ecosystems, making it more difficult for species to respond and adapt to a changing climate.
Our main goal: To amend the rules of the Kyoto Protocol so emissions from forest degradation (logging, mining, and other industrial uses) count towards a country's total emissions and are subject to Kyoto’s binding emission reduction target.
Canada and others are currently re-negotiating the Protocol's rules. Accounting for emissions from forest management is currently voluntary, which means emissions from extensive forest degradation in Canada do not count toward our total emissions and are not subject to Kyoto’s binding emission reduction target.
In Canada, forest degradation routinely occurs as natural, carbon-rich forests are roaded, logged and replaced by younger forests with lower levels of carbon.
Chris Henschel, CPAWS’ National Manager of Boreal Conservation has been working for several years to advance policy proposals with the Canadian government and other countries to fix this problem. Mandatory accounting of emissions from forest degradation would create an incentive for wilderness protection in Canada and elsewhere.
By saving the threatened woodland caribou's remaining Boreal forest habitat across Canada, we'll also help protect one of the world's largest remaining carbon reserves, and slow the effects of climate change.
CAN discussion Paper on LULUCF Issues and Considerations
CPAWS letter in support of the Western Climate Initiative
CPAWS Fact sheet explaining the effects of climate change on the wilderness, some solutions and changes CPAWS is proposing to the government.
Woody bioenergy and climate change
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