Conservation and climate change
The threat
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.* And 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.
The opportunity:
Protecting Canada's Boreal Forest can actually slow the rate of climate change. Canada’s boreal ecoregion 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,
By protecting large tracts of wilderness, we can help ecosystems survive and respond in the face of climate change. We will prevent CO2 emissions caused by their industrial exploitation. We’ll also be slowing the positive feedback loop between climate change and carbon loss from these ecosystems.
* Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change