Turning Up the Heat : Global Warming and the Degradation of Canada's Boreal Forest

global warming, but are also helping the forest itself to resist and recover from global warming impacts. These unfragmented areas are also helping trees, plants, and animals to migrate and adapt in response to changing climate conditions.

At the same time, however, it finds that logging is destabilizing the Boreal Forest in ways that may exacerbate both global warming and its impacts. The forest products industry and government regulators adamantly deny that logging in Canada’s Boreal affects the climate. But research shows that when the forest is degraded through logging and industrial development, massive amounts of greenhouse gasses are released into the atmosphere, and the forest becomes more vulnerable to global warming impacts like fires and insect outbreaks. In many cases, these impacts cause even more greenhouse gasses to be released, driving a vicious circle in which global warming degrades the Boreal Forest, and Boreal Forest degradation advances global warming. If left unchecked, this could culminate in a catastrophic release of greenhouse gasses known as “the carbon bomb”.

For these reasons, the report concludes that greenhouse gas emissions must be drastically reduced and that intact areas of Canada’s Boreal Forest must be protected—for the sake of the forest, and for the sake of the climate.