About Canada's Boreal

Ontario

Ontario’s Boreal Forest:

• is 862,000 km2 (213 million acres) in size – more than 1½ times larger than France.1
• comprises 15% of Canada’s Boreal Forest.
• is home to more than 80 aboriginal communities.2 Many distinct native cultures and languages in what is today Ontario date back at least 7,000 years.3
• stores 49 billion tonnes of carbon in its soils, peat and forests – an amount equivalent to 249 years of Canada’s annual carbon emissions.4
• contains the 3rd-largest wetland in the world, the Hudson Bay Lowlands, covering 25% of Ontario’s land surface.
• is the breeding ground for 200 to 400 million birds of more than 250 species, including threatened species like Yellow Rail, Canada Warbler and Olive-sided Flycatcher.
• supports approximately 5,000, or 16%, of Canada’s threatened boreal Woodland caribou population.5
• features 640,000 km2 (158 million acres) of intact forest, peatland and wetland habitat free from industrial development, making up nearly 75% of the province’s boreal region.6
• is home to more than 200 sensitive species of animals – including Polar bear, wolverine and caribou.

1. Canadian Boreal Initiative. 2003. Canada’s Boreal Region.
2. Aboriginal Canada Portal (www.aboriginalcanada.gc.ca), and Global Forest Watch.
3. Benke, A., and Cushing, C. Rivers of North America. 2005.
4. Tarnocai, C. and Lacelle, B. 1996. Soil Organic Carbon Digital Database of Canada. Eastern Cereal and Oilseed Research Center, Research Branch, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, Ottawa, Canada.
5. Environment Canada. 2008. Scientific Review for the Identification of Critical Habitat for Woodland Caribou (Rangifer tarandus caribou), Boreal Population, in Canada. August 2008.
6. Global Forest Watch Canada. 2009. Canada’s Forest Landscape Fragments: A Second Approximation.

 

Ontario's projects:

Boreal focus: Pimachiowin Aki - beautiful new video

Pimachiowin Aki - a unique partnership of four First Nations and the governments of Manitoba and Ontario, working together to create a UNESCO World Heritage Site in our area of the boreal forest.

The Poplar River, Little Grand Rapids, Pauingassi and Pikangikum First Nations, with the support of the Manitoba and Ontario governments, formed the Pimachiowin Aki Corporation in 2006 to achieve international recognition for the cultural and ecological values of the Boreal forest east of Lake Winnipeg as a World Heritage Site. The UNESCO World Heritage List was established as an international effort to identify and protect sites of universally outstanding value so that they would survive for the benefit of all humanity.

Once designated, Pimachiowin Aki will be one of only a handful of sites on the World Heritage List that are recognized for both outstanding cultural and natural heritage values. The area is an important Anishinabe cultural landscape, and designation will support the maintenance of traditional ways of life as well as creating new opportunities for sustaining First Nation economies.