PRESS ADVISORY

CANADA TO PROTECT OVER 25 MILLION ACRES OF BOREAL FOREST WILDERNESS:  ONE OF LARGEST CONSERVATION ACTIONS IN NORTH AMERICAN HISTORY

Boreal Forest near Fort Good Hope, Northwest Territories, Canada
Photo courtesy of Ducks Unlimited Canada

On Wednesday, the Government of Canada will announce one of the biggest land conservation agreements in North American history, protecting 25.5 million acres in the heart of the Canadian Boreal Forest, an area approximately equal in size to 11 Yellowstone National Parks.  The lands to be protected include:

• 3.7 million acres reserved for a future national wildlife area along the Mackenzie River near the town of Fort Good Hope under the Northwest Territories Protected Area Strategy;
  
  
• 8.3 million acres identified for a new national park (6.5 million acres of new protection) on the East Arm of Great Slave Lake, and
  
  
• 15 million acres between the new East Arm National Park and an existing wildlife refuge to be managed for conservation and appropriate development by local tribes under a pending treaty agreement.

These lands will be protected from development as management plans and final agreements are completed. Final designations for each area will follow within the next five years. 

This action is the penultimate step in realizing long-standing conservation proposals and concluding land rights settlement agreements with local aboriginal First Nations. These processes have been assisted and supported by several environmental organizations, including the Pew Environment Group, the Canadian Boreal Initiative, Ducks Unlimited, and the World Wildlife Fund.

MAP OF PROTECTED AREAS

Click for a larger JPG map >
Click for a printable PDF map >

The Canadian Boreal Forest is the largest intact forest remaining on the planet, rivaling the Amazon in size and ecological importance.  It stores twice as much carbon per acre as tropical rainforests, protecting earth from even worse threats from global warming.  It also teems with wildlife, including nesting grounds for billions of migratory songbirds and 40% of North America’s waterfowl.  Canada’s Boreal is also home to some of the world’s largest remaining populations of grizzly and polar bears, wolves, woodland and barren-ground caribou.

Part of the impetus for these actions is a visionary conservation plan, the Canadian Boreal Conservation Framework, endorsed by 1500 scientists, 25 Aboriginal organizations, 100 corporations and leading conservation groups in Canada.  The Boreal Conservation Framework calls for permanently protecting at least 50% of the Canadian Boreal and applying strict environmental safeguards for development in any other areas. 

Steve Kallick, Boreal Project Director for the Pew Environment Group, said, “Canada’s Boreal Forest is under tremendous pressure from large scale development, including tar sands mines, diamond and uranium mining, oil and gas drilling and pipelines, and widespread logging.  Today, Canadian government is moving aggressively to rebalance the equation toward protecting this global treasure.”

Larry Innes, Executive Director of the Canadian Boreal Initiative said “without the leadership of Canada’s First Nations, these great conservation victories would not have been realized.  Protecting Canada’s Boreal Forest requires cooperation between the federal and territorial governments and local First Nations.  We applaud the federal and territorial governments, the Akaitcho First Nations and the community of Fort Good Hope for this tremendous achievement.”

According to Monte Hummel, President Emeritus of the World Wildlife Fund-Canada, “Canada clearly recognizes that sustainable development and conservation must go hand in hand for a vibrant future.  We anticipate in the next year that the government will continue to permanently protect additional areas of the Canadian Boreal Forest.”

For more information call:      

Steve Kallick, Boreal Conservation Director, Pew Environment Group (215) 817-1676 (cell) skallick@pewtrusts.org

Larry Innes, Executive Director, Canadian Boreal Initiative (416) 575-6776 (cell)  linnes@borealcanada.ca

Monte Hummel, President, World Wildlife Fund, Canada.  mhummel@wwfcanada.org

Chief Adeline Jonasson, Lutsel K’e Dene (867) 445-6385 (cell)  addie_jonasson@yahoo.ca (expert on East Arm NP and Akaitcho Conservation Lands)

Shannon Haszard, Northwest Territories Manager, Ducks Unlimited Canada (867) 444-0762 s_haszard@ducks.ca (expert on Ramparts)

BACKGROUND

Areas Protected:

1) Ts’ude niline Tu’eyeta/Ramparts candidate National Wildlife Area: 15,087 km2 or 1.5 million ha/3,728,078 acres

The future Ts’ude niline Tu’eyeta/Ramparts National Wildlife Area is being advanced under the Northwest Territories Protected Area Strategy to maintain the culture and way of life of local Sahtu Dene First Nation communities, and to protect some of the most important wetlands and waterfowl habitat in Canada’s vast Boreal Forest.  This area is located approximately 800 km northwest of Yellowknife, NWT at the Arctic Circle.  Protecting this area of Canada’s Boreal Forest will help maintain biodiversity, cultural values, and ecological goods and services. 

2) East Arm of the Great Slave Lake National Park Area of Interest: 2.6 million ha/6.5 million acres. 728,000 ha/1.8 million acres were previously reserved, bringing the total area to 3.4 million ha/8.3 million acres.

Thaydene Nene, the Lands of the Ancestors, is the Dene name for the proposed national park in surrounding the East Arm of Great Slave Lake. Work to establish the new national park is being led by the Lutsel K’e Dene First Nation and Parks Canada, supported by national conservation organizations.  The creation of the park will insure that the integrity of the Lutsel K’e Dene’s culture and traditional territory – in Canada’s Boreal Forest – and the tremendous fish and wildlife habitat of the area will be preserved.

3) Akaitcho Land Withdrawals: 6.2 million ha/15.3 million acres protected. 

As part of negotiations towards a modern treaty settlement agreement, the Akaitcho First Nations have selected these ecologically and culturally important lands. They intend these lands to be conserved and managed under tribal direction to achieve environmental protection and sustainable development objective.  The Akaitcho have a high level of concern about the impacts of uranium exploration and diamond mining activities in their traditional territory. 

The Northwest Territories Protected Area Strategy

The Northwest Territories Protected Area Strategy (NWT PAS) is a unique collaboration between the governments of Canada and the Northwest Territories, Aboriginal peoples, conservation groups and industry stakeholders established in 1999.  The goal of the PAS is to complete a culturally and ecologically representative network of protected areas in the NWT, ensuring that communities are able to benefit from both conservation and development. More than 30 sites have been proposed by the communities themselves, working collaboratively with conservation groups, industry and all levels of government.

For more information: http://www.nwtwildlife.com/pas/

Boreal Forest Conservation Framework

The visionary goal of the Boreal Forest Conservation Framework is grounded in conservation science and traditional wisdom, and seeks to preserve at least half of the Boreal Forest in a network of large, interconnected protected areas and conservation zones, and to support sustainable communities through world-leading ecosystem-based resource management practices and state-of-the-art stewardship practices in the remaining landscape.

The Framework has the support of leading resource companies, financial institutions, conservation groups, and Aboriginal organizations. In May 2007, more than 1500 scientists from around the world endorsed the Framework's vision for Boreal conservation.

For more information: http://www.borealcanada.ca/