Boreal Forest Essay ⋆ Environment Essay Examples ⋆ EssayEmpire

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In conventional geographic terms, the boreal forest is a terrestrial biome encircling nearly the entire subarctic. In North America, the boreal forest lies predominantly within Canada, where it occupies a contiguous zone from the province of Newfoundland to the Mackenzie River delta in the Northwest Territories, extending as far south as central Ontario and Quebec. Significant portions of boreal forest are also found in central Alaska. In Europe and North Asia, the boreal forest or taiga forest is equally impressive in size, spanning northern Scandinavia, northern Russia and Siberia, and the Kamchatka Peninsula. Although frequently represented as a vast wilderness, millions of people reside in the boreal forest. In Canada alone, just fewer than 4 million people are estimated to reside within the boreal forest, including well over 500 hundred First Nations communities and several large resource-dependent municipalities. The taiga in Eurasia is also very heavily populated.

Rich in Natural Resources

The boreal forest consists of mainly coniferous tree species, including fir, spruce, and tamarack. There are also deciduous tree species, such as trembling aspen and poplar, and large expanses of peat bog, especially in the northern latitudes. Sizeable herds of woodland caribou (reindeer in Eurasia) migrate throughout the boreal forest, as do large populations of black bears, grizzly bears, and timber wolves. Recent estimates suggest that in North America alone, over 4 billion migratory landbirds inhabit the boreal forest at the height of the summer breeding season. Topographically, the boreal forest varies from flat, lowland expanses in central and northern Canada and the Siberian lowland, to mountainous regions in western Canada and west-central Russia.

The boreal forest is among the world’s most important sources of natural resources, and for this reason has become an object of environmental concern over the last few decades. Since roughly the early 1990s, environmental and conservation organizations have argued that excessive industrial resource extraction throughout the boreal forest is having a detrimental effect on the forest’s capacity to deliver environmental services such as biodiversity, potable water and carbon storage. In 1997, these concerns were given additional gravitas when the World Resources Institute declared that the boreal forest comprises 50 percent of the world’s remaining “frontier forest” and urged governments, civil society and industry to collectively halt the pace of boreal forest destruction. Subsequently, many North American and European conservation organizations began drawing public attention to the boreal forest through media campaigns and consensus-building activities. Similarly, many indigenous peoples’ groups including the Sámi people, the Lubicon Cree, James Bay Cree, and Deh Cho First Nations have argued that excessive resource extraction in the boreal forest poses a significant threat to their cultural survival, since such activities are frequently carried out on their traditional territories and often infringe on their legal rights.

One noteworthy feature of boreal forest politics is that the forest is represented politically in different terms depending on the region in question. In Canada, many conservation groups recognize the importance of the Canadian boreal forest’s carbon storage capacity, echoing the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which says that the global boreal forest contains 25 percent of the world’s terrestrial carbon. They also place heavy emphasis on the protection of mammalian and avian biodiversity. In seeking some degree of boreal forest conservation, these groups have embraced an anthropocentric ideology that places an economic value on the ecosystem goods and services provided by the boreal forest. According to one recent estimate, the total value of ecosystem goods and services supplied by Canada’s boreal forest in 2002 was $93.2 billion, while the total value of carbon stored in the boreal forest was valued at $3.7 trillion. These groups hope that policymakers will factor these figures into long-term land use planning decisions that affect the boreal forest, and as such, contribute to ecologically benign future development. In Canada, this approach to boreal forest conservation has resulted in an environmental political culture that emphasizes consensus building among numerous stakeholder groups. The Canadian Boreal Initiative, for instance, is currently brokering a social consensus that brings together First Nations, conservation groups and industry to negotiate a sustainable future for the boreal forest.

In Europe and North Asia, environmental groups articulate the taiga forest in somewhat different terms. While such “green developmentalism” is an important goal for many of these groups, they argue that taiga conservation cannot be implemented without addressing the underlying causes of taiga deforestation, such as illegal forest activity and government corruption. These groups seek to ensure that taiga forest products imported into the European Union conform to the highest environmental, social and governance standards.

Bibliography:

Mark Anielski and Sara Wilson, Counting Canada’s Natural Capital: Assessing the Real Value of Canada’s Boreal Ecosystems (Canadian Boreal Initiative and Pembina Institute, 2005);
Peter Blancher, The Importance of Canada’s Boreal Forest to Landbirds (Canadian Boreal Initiative and Boreal Songbird Initiative, 2003);
Dirk Bryant, Daniel Nielsen, and Laura Tangley, The Last Frontier Forests: Ecosystems and Economies on the Edge (World Resources Institute, 1997);
Philip Burton, Christian Messier, Daniel W. Smith and Wiktor L. Adamowicz, (eds.), Towards the Sustainable Management of the Boreal Forest (National Research Council of Canada, 2003);
David Henry, Canada’s Boreal Forest (Smithsonian Institution Press, 2002).