Credit: Parks Canada

Today the government of Canada announced the creation of a vast new national park. Mealy Mountains National Park will be larger than Yellowstone and Yosemite combined, and will act as a vital refuge for increasingly threatened species like woodland caribou and the eastern population of the Harlequin Duck.

Credit: Tom Vezo

In addition, the park will recognize the cultural traditions of local indigenous peoples and allow them to continue traditional sustenance methods like hunting and fishing.

Adding to the excitement of today, the province of Newfoundland and Labrador jointly announced the creation of an adjacent provincial park to help maintain the ecological quality of the area.

So far it has received good pick-up in the media in Canada (and deservedly). Here’s an article from the Montreal Gazette:

Huge new national park announced for Labrador
By Randy Boswell
OTTAWA — Environmentalists are heaping praise on the Conservative government after its announcement Friday of the creation of a massive new national park in Labrador — a sprawling, 11,000-sq.-km protected area described as “bigger than the United States’ Yellowstone and Yosemite parks combined.”

Details about the new Mealy Mountains National Park, to be the single largest federal conservation zone in Eastern Canada, were unveiled by Environment Minister Jim Prentice during a press conference in Happy Valley-Goose Bay, N.L. with Newfoundland and Labrador’s Environment Minister Charlene Johnson.

“As we enter into the International Year of Biodiversity, it is fitting that we are working to establish a national park reserve to protect this spectacular boreal landscape for all time, for all Canadians,” Prentice said.

“This part of Labrador is not only of ecological significance, it is also of great cultural importance and we are committed to moving forward in a way that recognizes and respects the traditional connections people have with the land.”

Johnson also announced plans by the province to create a waterway park along the adjacent Eagle River that will expand the total protected area to 13,000 square kilometres.

“Together, these parks in the Mealy Mountains, when established, will protect a stunning array of boreal ecosystems and wildlife, along with landscapes of great cultural significance,” said a Parks Canada statement.

Pew Environment Group, a U.S.-based conservation advocacy organization, hailed the new park as a “great leap forward” for Canada’s national park system, the protection of the continent’s boreal forest and the promotion of biodiversity.

“These new parks will draw tourists from around the world, conserve lands important to aboriginal Canadians and safeguard the habitat of the Mealy Mountains woodland caribou herd,” said Steve Kallick, the director of Pew’s international boreal conservation campaign. “The scale of this new protected area is remarkable.”

I recently did a radio interview with Robin Young on her daily show Here and Now, on Boston public radio WBUR 90.9 FM. I mostly discussed the global importance of boreal forests and peatlands and their ability to sequester and store massive ammounts of carbon, but also mentioned some birds have adapted well to peatlands, especially the Palm Warbler, which can be found migrating through and wintering in many US states in the East.

The interview runs about 5 minutes – click to listen or right-click to save file:
Interview (.mp3) >

Here and Now is a great show that discusses a wide variety of news issues. It’s played on a lot of stations throughout the US, click here to see a list of stations it runs on.

Today a report by the Boreal Songbird Initiative, the Canadian Boreal Initiative, and the David Suzuki Foundation was released about the increased need to recognize the traditional relationships between indigenous peoples of the boreal forest and the plants they’ve depended on for thousands of years. It’s easy to think about threatened wildlife or carbon storage when discussing the importance or values of the boreal forest, but the ethnobotanical value (meaning relationship between people and plants) is an often overlooked part of this equation.

Report Page >

Many of the original inhabitants of the boreal forest had meat-rich diets, and many still do today. But there are many nutrients that don’t come in the form of meat. Foods such as wild blueberries and wild rice provided and still provide key nutrition to indigenous communities in the north.

Cree Children Picking Wild Blueberries
Credit: Natasha Moine

In addition, the relationships between people and plants in the boreal doesn’t stop at food – many of the plant species used include uses for medicine, shelter, transportation, and art. In this sense the boreal forest can be seen as a grocery, pharmacy, supply store, and spiritual center for the traditional communities who have lived there for thousands of years.

Canada is unique in the sense that it’s a modernized western democracy yet still has thousands of indigenous people living in relatively intact and pristine forests. While modern tools and accessories like clothes, guns, and electricity have reached some of these communities, you will still find most using the same knowledge sets and understanding of plants they’ve been using for generations. This is something that should and must be valued when discussing land-use and conservation in the boreal forest.

Cree Men Carving Canoe Paddles
Credit: Natasha Moine

Here is the report page (includes link to full report) and press release – the report includes tables for all plants used in various ways as well as descriptions of the use:

Report Page >
Press Release >

Boreal Forest in Labrador Credit: Larry Innes I'm posting a wonderful letter to the editor in The Labradorian about the need to protect boreal forests in Labrador – this one by our Canadian colleague Larry Innes of the Canadian Boreal Initiative. There are a whole host of migratory birds that breed in Labrador's Boreal Forest in the summer, some of which might pass by your neighborhood depending on where you live. But as the op-ed mentions it's not only natural values that would be protected – cultural values for aboriginal communities like hunting and harvesting would also be preserved by upping levels of protection: Desperately Seeking Conservation Action in 2010 Labradorians won't look back on 2009 as a banner year for conservation. Instead of celebrating long-awaited announcements, we've been left with fearful speculation that promises to protect Labrador's natural and cultural heritage may never be realized. Although Phase 3 of the Trans-Labrador Highway is now complete and the Lower Churchill hydroelectric project continues to move ahead, the long-promised Mealy Mountains/Akamiuapishk National Park remains at a standstill. Read the full op-ed here >

Boreal forest in Labrador
Credit: Larry Innes, CBI 

One of my colleagues (and member of the International Boreal Conservation Science Panel) just wrote an excellent and timely op-ed in The Telegram arguing that Canada’s real job on climate issues comes after the Copenhagen conference. Dr. Jacobs points out that Newfoundland and Labrador have extensive regions of boreal forest that store and sequester carbon, but little has been officially protected. I’ll let you read the full op-ed yourself:

In The Telegram:

Protecting boreal Newfoundland and Labrador

John D. Jacobs
January 6, 2010

The recent Copenhagen Climate Change conference and the international commitments to follow have serious implications for all Canadians, notwithstanding the lack of leadership shown by our federal government.

As a northern country, Canada has much to lose from the environmental, social and economic upheavals expected with climate warming. These changes will bring misery to millions. No doubt for some of us there will also be opportunities, though these may be fleeting.

Threats and opportunities

Recognizing climate change as both a threat and an opportunity, the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador has chosen a strategy that combines adaptation and opportunism. Adaptation is seen in the government’s support for research, education and planning to prepare communities and institutions to meet the challenges of a changing environment. Opportunism is seen in its promotion of large-scale hydroelectric power as a “green” option for potential customers in the US to reduce their carbon emissions.

All things considered, the Lower Churchill project is not really green – forest land will be flooded and greenhouse gases produced. From a long-term global perspective in the context of climate change, it will not be very significant.

Its value is primarily economic, but it will be done at the expense of the Labrador environment.

Important resources

Our province has other resources that are truly important to the long-term stability of our climate and ecosystem. These are our vast, still largely intact forests and wetlands. Boreal forests capture and hold carbon not only in the trees and other vegetation that we see on the surface, but also in the soils.

It is not uncommon to find 200 year-old spruce trees in Labrador forests, and the forest soils and wetland peats have been accumulating carbon for thousands of years. Roughly half of the island portion of our province and over 70 per cent of the area of Labrador contain these high-carbon soils.

Globally, boreal forests cover about 10 per cent of the land area of the earthand store nearly twice as much carbon as is found in the tropical forests. So long as this carbon remains in the ground, it is not contributing to climate warming.

Conservation of the boreal carbon pool means keeping large areas of our forests and peatlands intact. This is essential as well for the protection of our resident and migratory wildlife and the biodiversity that sustains all species.

Where forests are exploited, we can minimize the disruption by using ecosystem-based methods. As for peatlands, it is hard to see how mining peat for fuel is any better than mining coal.

Others are acting

Ontario and Quebec are boreal provinces that have already set aside large portions of their northern lands to be left undeveloped.

What have we done in this province? In 2001, the government of the day announced a protected areas vision with a target of 10 to 15 per cent of provincial lands to be in parks and reserves. Recent government estimates show that less than 5 per cent of all provincial lands have protected status, 7.7 per cent of lands on the island and 3.3 per cent of those in Labrador. Long delays have been the rule in the creation of significant new parks and reserves that are representative of important ecoregions.

In Labrador, the process toward establishment of a Mealy Mountains/Akamiuapishku National Park has gone on for over a decade. The preferred area, some 21,000 sq. km, has significant examples of five ecoregions and a diversity of wildlife, including a distinct mountain caribou population. Within that area, the Kenamu Valley holds some of our finest examples of High Boreal Forest, while the Eagle River Plateau contains vast peatland areas. All need protection, and it is up to the provincial government to agree on what is included in the national park.

By recognizing the intrinsic value of our boreal regions and moving now to ensure that we have a significant part of those areas protected from development, we will go a long way toward demonstrating our credentials as a truly green province.

 

This year, 2010, has been officially declared to be the International Year for Biodiversity by the United Nations. After thousands of years of agriculture and development (including the resource boom following the industrial revolution), humans have pushed increasing numbers of species to the brink of extinction, and unfortunately, many past the brink. It is estimated today that species are going extinct somewhere between 100 to 1000 times the natural rate of extinction – to say this is alarming would be an understatement.

It’s tremendous the United Nations has recognized our impacts as humans and is using this year to promote awareness about threatened species.

Here’s a quick video of UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon introducing the year of biodiversity and summarizing why biodiversity matters:

My particular niche is birds, and more specifically birds that breed in the boreal forest. There are many birds across the boreal forest that are increasingly threatened, including the Rusty Blackbird (90% overall decline), the Canada Warbler (80% overall decline), the American Black Duck (79% overall decline), and unfortunately many others. We have heard the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) is interested in working more on boreal-forest issues, and we would welcome any attention and help protecting vital boreal forest regions.

American Black Duck
Credit: Jeff Nadler

The official launch date is scheduled for January 11 in Germany. It will be exciting to hear how it goes and what we can expect for the rest of the year. Here are a couple more links if you find this kind of stuff interesting:

CBD’s Year of Biodiversity page >

IUCN’s list of 10 most threatened species by climate change >

UN’s press release on the International Year of Biodiversity >

Group of birdwatchers looking for birds
Credit: Garth Lenz

I just wanted to remind you birders out there that Audubon’s annual Christmas Bird Count (CBC) is currently underway and ends January 5, 2010. One of the best examples of what has come to be known as “citizen science”, the annual CBC is a great way for birders to help experts compile data on bird occurrences, which in turn allows them to better understand emerging patterns and can help determine specific conservation needs.

In fact, last year Audubon compiled the last 40 years of data from previous CBCs and was able to determine that rising temperatures from climate change had moved many birds’ wintering grounds further north.

Here’s a link to their report summary page:
http://birdsandclimate.audubon.org/
And one to a USA Today article covering the findings:
http://www.usatoday.com/weather/climate/globalwarming/2009-02-10-birds-warming_N.htm

Audubon could not have compiled such an extensive database of bird sightings without birders like you participating in the annual CBC. While birding is generally something I consider fun, it’s nice to know that you can so easily contribute to beneficial research and understanding of birds.

On Saturday I had the pleasure of counting birds in my neighborhood as part of the official Augusta (Maine) annual Audubon Christmas Bird Count. My birding companion and I even found a few Boreal species that only occasionally stay around this late in inland parts of the state—three Yellow-rumped Warblers and a Ruby-crowned Kinglet.

Here’s a Yellow-rumped Warbler video I took earlier in the fall:

To find out about CBCs near you and contact your local CBC compiler to sign up and start counting. Just check out Audubon’s CBC web page at:
http://www.audubon.org/Bird/cbc/

This past September I had the opportunity and pleasure to spend time with some of my Boreal colleagues (and I mean humans not birds) in Victoria, British Columbia.

To get there we took the Victoria Clipper, a high-speed ferry, from Seattle. Although it was tough to look for birds because of the speed of the boat and the windiness, I did see some interesting birds and some impressive scenery.  There were a few Rhinocerus Auklets, Marbled Murrelets, and Heermann’s Gulls closer to land but the real show was the dozens of Pink-footed Shearwaters, hundreds of Sooty Shearwaters, and thousands of Common Murres. There were also lots of Harbor Porpoise and one of what appeared to me to be an Elephant Seal (range maps show them occasionally up that far but if any reader can comment on the likelihood of this it would be great).

In Victoria I did not have much time to look for birds but while examining some of the famous totem poles carved by BC indigenous peoples with all the amazing bird images, I discovered a small flock of migrant songbirds including Yellow Warblers, (47% breed in Boreal), Orange–crowned Warbler (65% breed in Boreal) and a Ruby-crowned Kinglet (68% breed in Boreal).

Here’s a Boreal-breeder right in the middle of the city:

We were blessed with a beautiful sunset on the ferry returning to seattle:

Credit: David Childs, Boreal Songbird Initiative

The following letter signed by prominent international scientists, including several members of the Nobel Prize-winning IPCC, was sent to the leaders of all eight boreal forest nations calling on them to protect their vital boreal carbon stores:

Download as PDF >

Scientists Call on International Leaders to Protect Vast Boreal Carbon Storehouse

December 14, 2009

Dear Prime Minister Batbold, President Halonen, Prime Minister Harper, President Hu Jintao, President Medvedev, President Obama, Prime Minister Stoltenberg, and Prime Minister Reinfeldt:

As leaders of the eight nations that steward the global boreal forest biome that accounts for more than half of the world’s terrestrial carbon reserves and half of the world’s remaining intact forests, you have an exceptional responsibility to the citizens of the planet. You also have an exceptional opportunity to show global leadership by calling for mechanisms to better protect these carbon reserves during the upcoming climate negotiations in Copenhagen.

Globally boreal forests are a key carbon pool that has been largely overlooked in the climate change policy debate to date. In fact, boreal forest holds more carbon per acre than any other land-based ecosystem, perhaps two or three times as much carbon as in the tropics. The boreal region is also home to some of the world’s last intact forests, abundant populations of large mammals and birds and home to hundreds of indigenous communities. When boreal soils and peatlands are disturbed by development, major carbon reserves are released. These facts make it imperative that the world’s policy makers and public now make a concerted effort to ensure that both the boreal forest and its vast stores of carbon remain intact. To achieve this will require both drastic cuts in industrial emissions and importantly, a vast increase in the areas protected for their carbon values and left undisturbed from industrial development.

Industrial emissions of greenhouse gases are moving the world into an uncertain future. Solutions to slow negative impacts of rapid and large changes are still possible, if we act swiftly and strategically on a global scale. First and foremost is, of course, a drastic reduction in industrial emissions of carbon from the burning of fossil fuels. Without real and substantial cuts in the amount of carbon we are putting into the atmosphere, the ecological foundations upon which humans and all life depends will be degraded and changed in more ways than scientists or the public have been able to predict or imagine. The northern parts of the planet, especially within your eight nations, are already experiencing some of the most dramatic impacts and will continue to be among the hardest hit on the globe.

Reducing the loss of carbon from industrial land-use needs to be included as part of the solution. In particular, the accelerating conversion of natural habitats for agriculture, forestry, mining, oil and gas extraction, hydropower and other industrial purposes must be slowed. Globally, land-use change has accounted for nearly 20% of annual greenhouse gas emissions. Because of these emissions, there has been a recent push to find financial incentives and policy instruments that will encourage developing tropical nations to slow deforestation and retain natural forests through environmental service payment schemes and increased protection efforts. This initiative is critical to helping to slow climate change impacts and to protect the incredible species richness and indigenous cultures of these tropical regions and we encourage you to do your part to ensure that this continues. We also urge you to broaden this approach by including the world’s carbon-rich northern boreal forests as a focus for future carbon protection policy solutions.

Policy mechanisms under negotiation should formally recognize the importance of maintaining intact carbon stores in the global boreal forest region and other terrestrial ecosystems and provide incentives for protecting and conserving large intact carbon rich ecosystems. All emissions including those from land-use activities should be accounted for in national carbon budgets and revenues obtained through separate regulatory processes like taxes or cap-and-trade should be used to lower total emissions and maintain intact ecosystems that will be the future climate change refugia for the earth’s biodiversity.

Dr. Pascal Badiou, Ducks Unlimited Canada
Dr. Jing Chen, University of Toronto
Dr. John Jacobs, Memorial University of Newfoundland
Dr. Jeremy Kerr, University of Ottawa
Dr. Olga Krankina, Oregon State University
Dr. Micheline Manseau, University of Manitoba
Dr. Gordon Orians, University of Washington
Dr. Stuart Pimm, Duke University
Dr. Peter Raven, Washington University, St. Louis
Dr. Terry Root, Stanford University
Dr. Nigel Roulet, McGill School of Environment
Dr. James Schaefer, Trent University
Dr. David Schindler, University of Alberta
Dr. Nils Stenseth, University of Oslo, Norway
Dr. Jim Strittholt, Conservation Biology Institute
Dr. Lars Tranvik, Uppsala University, Sweden
Dr. Nancy Turner, University of Victoria
Dr. Raimo Virkkala, Finnish Environment Institute
Dr. Andrew Weaver, University of Victoria

Download as PDF >

One of our colleagues, Chris Henschel of the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society (CPAWS), has been running around the madness in the Copenhagen climate talks trying to increase the pressure on developed countries to set more ambitious goals on forest management. Forests, peatlands, and other natural ecosystems store tons of carbon, but this carbon is easily released upon development.

One problem Chris has been observing so far in Copenhagen is that many developed countries, including Canada, have been setting poor baseline figures with which to compare future emissions to down the road. He refers to this as a ‘logging loophole’, where developed countries can get away with future emissions from land use by citing their already-high baseline figures (which they create on their own).

Chris has compiled a useful ‘Make Forests Count Scorecard’ in which he grades various developed nations by their formal positions on forest management and goals for reducing emissions from land use. Personally I find it shocking that so many developed countries are trying to duck their way out of strong reduction policies in terms of forest management.

Here’s a link to his scorecard:
http://makeforestscount.org/scorecard.php

He’s been providing updates from his time in Copenhagen on his blog, which can be found here:
http://climateforests.blogspot.com/

Lastly, here’s a YouTube video where Chris describes in more detail this ‘loophole’ mentioned earlier. You might find the first few minutes interesting, but his actual explanation starts at 2:25: