Boreal forests store more carbon than any other terrestrial ecosystem on earth – twice as much per area as tropical forests. Past estimates of this carbon greatly underestimated the amount, depth, and longevity of this carbon. As the most intact remaining forest on earth, the boreal forest also has exceptionally high potential to accommodate plants and animals forced to shift due to climate change.

Canada hosts most of North America’s Boreal Forest. Canada’s vast Boreal Forest stores an estimated 208 billion tons of carbon (71 billion tons in forests⁴ and 137 billion tons in peatlands⁵)—the equivalent of 26 years worth of global carbon emissions from burning fossil fuels.

This BorealBirds.org report questions whether international negotiations on carbon and forest protection have adequately considered boreal forests in light of the scientific findings outlining their significance.  For more information, please visit BorealBirds.org

This entry was posted on Friday, December 4th, 2009 at 12:55 pm and is filed under Environment, Frontpage. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.