Logging in Canada’s Boreal Forest could trigger “carbon bomb” impacting global climate, says report

The report warns that if this vicious circle is left unchecked, it could culminate in a massive and sudden release of greenhouse gases referred to as “the carbon bomb.” Canada’s Boreal Forest stores 186 billion tonnes of carbon⎯equivalent to 27 times the world’s annual fossil fuel emissions. A widespread outbreak of forest or peat fires could release much of this carbon, causing a disastrous spike in emissions.

Turning Up the Heat: Global Warming and the Degradation of Canada’s Boreal Forest collects the best available scientific literature of the past decade. It concludes that intact areas of the Boreal Forest should be made off-limits to logging and other industrial activity⎯particularly in its biologically rich southern regions⎯ to curb this dangerous cycle.

“Canada can help slow global warming by protecting what’s left of the Boreal Forest,” said Christy Ferguson, a Greenpeace forests campaigner. “But if logging and mining continue to fragment the forest, carbon will be released, global warming impacts will become more intense, and the global climate will be put at risk.”

Elizabeth Nelson, a researcher at the University of Toronto and co-author of the report, cautions that logging continues to cause greenhouse gas emissions long after the trees are gone. “Over two-thirds of the carbon stored in the Boreal Forest is found in its soils. When the forest cover is removed, the soil decays, releasing additional carbon dioxide into the atmosphere over the following months, years, and even decades,” she said.

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 chances of migrating, adapting, and surviving in a changing climate.

“We already knew that logging in Canada’s Boreal Forest was putting key species like the woodland caribou at risk. Now we know that it poses serious risks to the global climate as well,” said Jay Malcolm, an associate professor at the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Forestry who reviewed the report. “Intact areas of the Boreal Forest are essential to maintaining the health of the ecosystem in a changing climate.”

Other key findings from the expert-reviewed report:

• 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.
• The area of North American Boreal burned by forest fires doubled between 1970 and 1990. As forest fires become larger, more frequent, and more intense, more and more carbon dioxide is being released into the atmosphere.
• 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.

The report and the executive summary are available for download at: www.greenpeace.ca/turninguptheheat.

High resolution photographs can be downloaded on gallery.greenpeace.ca

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For more information, please contact:
Brian Blomme, Greenpeace Communications, (416) 930-9055