The Boreal Forest of North America Imagine a wetland-rich forest teeming with wildlife and billions of colorful songbirds, ducks, and shorebirds. This description might conjure up images of the Everglades or the Amazon Rainforest. In reality, it describes a forest ecosystem in northern Canada and Alaska called the boreal forest. Named after Boreas, Greek god of the north wind, the boreal region circles the Earth’s far north latitudes, just below the treeless tundra of the Arctic. Larger than the Brazilian Rainforest, North America’s boreal forest stretches from interior Alaska across Canada to the Atlantic Ocean. The boreal ecosystem is a unique and productive mosaic of interconnected habitats that include forests, lakes, river valleys, wetlands, peat lands and – at its northern reaches – tundra. It is a mixed conifer and deciduous forest with six key tree species: white and black spruce, trembling aspen, balsam poplar, tamarack (also called larch), and white birch. Canada and Alaska’s boreal is still largely intact with 80% still undeveloped. It is one of the last great forests containing almost a quarter of the planet’s remaining original forests. With more than 1.5 billion lakes, the boreal holds more fresh water than any other place on earth. It also constitutes the world’s largest terrestrial storehouse of carbon, making it one of the earth’s most important defenses against global warming. Some of the largest populations of caribou, wolves, grizzlies, lynx, and moose left on the planet live in the boreal. It’s a place where vast stretches of wilderness – 1.4 billion acres – allow nature’s predator-prey relationships to continue unimpeded. And billions of birds fly north to the Boreal each spring to breed and fledge their young. More than 320 bird species – nearly half of all North American breeding species – depend on the Boreal for some portion of their lives and more than 300 of those species regularly breed in the Boreal. During spring migration, more than a billion birds fly through the U.S. to their breeding grounds in the Boreal Forest. Each fall up to three billion birds migrate south from the Boreal Forest. Approximately 60% of these migrants spend the winter in the U.S – making the U.S. the largest wintering grounds for boreal birds such as White-throated Sparrows, Ruby-crowned Kinglets, Bohemian Waxwings, and Swamp and Harris’s Sparrows. Much attention has been paid to the wintering grounds of Neotropical migrants in South and Central America. But until recently, there has been very little focus on the vitally important nesting grounds where billions of birds go to mate and fledge their young. And these nesting grounds are threatened. While the majority of the Canadian Boreal is presently considered ecologically intact, oil and gas, timber, mining, and hydroelectric development are pushing northwards at increasing rates. In Ontario alone, 85,000 migratory bird nests were lost in 2001 due to logging. The U.S. is helping to drive this destruction. Eighty percent of Canada’s forest products are exported to the U.S. for catalogs, junk mail, tissue paper, and other paper products. And the U.S. buys more oil and gas from Canada than from any other single source. Given existing and proposed development in virtually every Canadian province and territory, the future of the boreal ecosystem will be largely determined over the next 5-10 years There is a solution-in-the-making that would reverse the trend of unsustainable development in the Boreal:  the Boreal Forest Conservation Framework.  Last year, some of Canada’s leading environmental organizations, First Nations, and oil and timber industry representatives set aside their past differences and announced a groundbreaking vision to protect and responsibly manage the entire boreal region.  Together, they share a vision to protect at least 50% of the region with a network of large interconnected areas and apply cutting-edge sustainable development practices – such as Forest Stewardship Council certification of wood and paper products – in other areas that are developed. Much work remains to turn this vision into a reality, but the Boreal Forest Conservation Framework presents a unique opportunity to protect this global treasure.