Page - April 9, 2008
- Warming conditions are causing more droughts, forest fires, and
insect outbreaks in parts of the Boreal Forest, and are reducing
the growth and survival of some Boreal trees.
- The area of North American Boreal burned by forest fires
doubled between 1970 and 1990. When forest fires become larger,
more frequent, and more intense, correspondingly larger amounts of
carbon dioxide are released into the atmosphere.
- Intact areas of the Boreal Forest resist and recover from
fires, insect outbreaks, and other impacts better than fragmented
areas. These areas also give trees, plants, and wildlife the best
changes of migrating, adapting, and ultimately surviving in a
changing climate.
- Logging removes roughly 36 million tonnes of aboveground carbon
from Canada's Boreal Forest each year-more carbon than is emitted
each year by all the passenger vehicles in Canada combined.
- Logged areas continue to emit carbon dioxide long after the
trees are gone-often for 10 years or more.
- Logging accelerates permafrost melt. When permafrost melts
carbon dioxide and methane-a greenhouse gas 21 times more potent
than carbon dioxide-are released into the atmosphere. Intact forest
cover may delay this melt for decades or even centuries.
- Logging reduces the diversity of a forest, making it more
vulnerable to forest fires, insect outbreaks, and other
disturbances, and therefore increasing the likelihood and extent of
future emissions.
- If current trends continue, a widespread outbreak of forest or
peat fires in the Boreal could cause a rapid release of carbon into
the atmosphere. Because Canada's Boreal Forest contains 186 billion
tonnes of carbon-27 times the world's annual fossil fuel
emissions-this could cause a disastrous spike in emissions.
- Preserving what remains of the biologically rich southern areas
of the Boreal Forest is essential to protecting the viability of
its vast northern expanses.
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