The Little Things Count

A historic agreement was reached on Tuesday 22nd May 2010 in Canada.

"TORONTO — Canada's major pulp and paper companies said Tuesday they will restrict logging in environmentally sensitive areas of the country's northern boreal forest as part of a groundbreaking deal with environmental groups.
The Forest Products Association of Canada, whose members include forestry giants such as AbitibiBowater Inc. and Weyerhaeuser Co. Ltd., said the industry has agreed to immediately suspend logging for three years on 75 million acres of boreal forest — roughly the size of Montana — where wildlife and habitat is endangered.
Canada's boreal forest stretches like a giant green belt southeast from the Yukon to Newfoundland and represents about 75 percent the country's woodlands. The Canadian Boreal Forest Agreement covers 170 million acres of the region — an area nearly twice the size of Germany — and includes forests in seven of the country's 10 provinces." Source: Associated Press.

Logging is being suspended for 3 years on around 72-75 million hectares of forest in order to develop a plan to protect 36,000 Caribou that live in the region under "The Canadian Boreal Forest Agreement". The compromise "environmental organizations have pledged to suspend international "Do Not Buy" anti-logging campaigns against Canadian lumber", so in order to protect a huge area of forest an help preserve a species environmental organisations have, potentially, provided Canada with an easier road prosperity in the logging industry. Canadian politics is all about economic growth - earlier this week Stephen Harper rejected UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's call for climate change to be on the G20 agenda at the G20 summit later this summer, stating, it's the economy that counts, the rest is just noise.

How economically prosperous is the logging industry?
Well, revenue from the forest sector is $54.2 billion annually (all currency in Canadian Dollars) and exports bring in $23.6 billion annually, mostly from paper ($10.9bil). The trade surplus is $14.4 bil annually, which is only second to the oil and gas industry. One can safely assume that the logging industry is one of the main cylinders firing Canada's economy, and for an entire sector to come up with an agreement like this is extremely rare. I'm sure those reading this have seen how sutbborn energy and oil companies can be when it comes to emissions agreements! Keeping this profitability intact whilst protecting swathes of forest will be sure to keep Ottawa happy - with the economic recovery in the US exports will grow, increasing the profitability of the industry. Although, that is one downside, 72 million hectares are protected and 28 million acres will not be cut for three years, but there is hundreds of millions of hectares of unprotected forest that is still available for logging.


This is fantastic news for the biodiversity of the region, and quite a step forward in the International Year of Biodiversity three days before the International Day of Biodiversity on May 22nd.  The size of the area to be protected is a little over the size of Italy (including Sardinia and Sicily) - by 841 square miles. There's another map here:



Canada's boreal forest, otherwise known as the Taiga is part of a biome that covers a large part Northern America and Eurasia. Largely coniferous forest the Taiga is the world's largest of the 15 terrestrial biomes and is considered a 'carbon sink', within the biome masses of carbon is stored as the forest releases less carbon than is absorbed, thus storing the carbon. Much of the carbon dioxide produced elsewhere on the Earth ends up in the world's forests and oceans.


Where is the Carbon?

• Mostly (80% in Canada's Taiga) in the dead organic matter found in the soil beneath the forests.

What is the largest carbon sink on Earth?

• The oceans are by far the largest, with the carbon stored in deposits beneath the ocean and in acids in the sea.

Forestry Companies Participating in the Agreement:
AbitibiBowater Inc., Alberta-Pacific Forest Industries Inc., AV Group, Canfor Corporation, Canfor Pulp Limited Partnership, Cariboo Pulp & Paper Company, Cascades inc., Daishowa-Marubeni International Ltd., F.F. Soucy Inc., Howe Sound Pulp and Paper Limited Partnership, Kruger Inc., Louisiana-Pacific Canada Ltd., Mercer International, Mill & Timber Products Ltd., NewPage Corporation, Papier Masson Ltée, SFK Pâte, Tembec, Tolko Industries Ltd., West Fraser Timber Co. Ltd., and Weyerhaeuser Company Limited, all represented by the Forest Products Association of Canada.










Environmental Organizations Participating in the Agreement:
Canadian Boreal Initiative, Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society, Canopy(formerly Markets Initiative), David Suzuki Foundation, ForestEthics, Greenpeace, Ivey Foundation, The Nature Conservancy, and Pew Environment Group’s International Boreal Conservation Campaign.

Mose of these environmental organizations can be followed on Facebook and Twitter, please show your support!

• Biodiversity - 1) The number and variety of organisms found within a specified geographic region. 2) The variability among living organisms on the earth, including the variability within and between species and within and between ecosystems.

• Biome - a complex biotic community characterized by distinctive plant and animal species and maintained under the climatic conditions of the region, esp. such a community that has developed to climax.

• Taiga - the coniferous evergreen forests of subarctic lands, covering vast areas of northern North America and Eurasia.

• Carbon Sink - a natural environment that absorbs and stores more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere than it releases, which offsets greenhouse gas emissions.

Source

Think of it this way, the world's lungs will be breathing easier after an area close to the size of Italy was protected by the 'medication' of suspended logging.