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The Nahanni National Park Reserve and UNESCO World Heritage Site protect a portion of one of Canada's most spectacular boreal wilderness areas and spiritual sites for local First Nations - the South Nahanni watershed. Canada announced on August 8th, that it would protect 5,400 additional square kilometres, bringing the total area under protection for the park - home to wolves, grizzly bears, lynx, woodland caribou, Trumpeter Swans, Dall's sheep and mountain goats - to 28,000 square kilometres.
That's roughly the size of the state of Maryland or the country of Haiti.
This important announcement is part of an international movement to protect Canada's 1.4 billion acre Boreal Forest, considered by conservationists to be one of the earth's last healthy and intact forest and fresh water ecosystems left on the planet, with some of the globe's largest populations of wolves, grizzly bears, woodland caribou and abundant fish life. The Boreal Forest also serves as the nesting grounds for billions of America's songbirds and waterfowl, most of which migrate south to become the familiar birds of backyards, parks, forests, and wetlands across the Americas. Finally, as the largest terrestrial carbon storehouse on earth, it is a critical global warming shield for our planet if properly cared for.
Less than 10 percent of Canada's Boreal Forest is permanently protected, and may be gone by the time our children are grown, because of pressures to develop its energy and mineral resources.
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