Canada's wetlands. (Image by: Chad Delany, Pew)

Canada’s boreal forest is in the news again this week with a study released yesterday by the Pew Environment Group. But while the Pew study argues that the preservation of the forest remains a top global priority, the Canadian timber industry may see a spike in demand for wood from Japan when it begins the rebuilding process following the devastating earthquake and tsunami that hit March 11.

The Pew study, A Forest of Blue: Canada’s Boreal Forest, the World’s Waterkeeper, focuses on the water dimensions of Canada’s boreal forest, which the Pew Environment Group (PEG) says has received little research attention in the past. In the 76-page paper, Pew highlights the essential ecosystem services that the vast forest provides for both the Canadian and international communities: a “vital bulwark” against biodiversity loss and global warming; 25% of the world’s wetlands, which, when combined with peatlands, store more than 147 billion tonnes of carbon; and a key freshwater contributor to Arctic sea ice through river flow. They estimate that these services are worth $700 billion annually. Canada’s boreal forest represents 54% of the world’s remaining boreal regions, with the only other in Russia.

What makes the boreal forest so essential, the report argues, is its “free-flowing and unfragmented nature.” Its critical role in regulating the global climate comes from cooling caused by the photosynthesis period and heating caused by evapotranspiration, as well as by its contributions to Arctic sea ice from the way it decreases the salinity of the water, allowing it to freeze more quickly. In addition to the Arctic, the Pacific and Atlantic oceans both receive massive amounts of freshwater flow from Canada’s boreal.

The study acknowledges the work currently done by the Canadian government at all levels, and by both local and international organizations, outlined in the Boreal Forest Conservation Framework, to protect the forest, pointing out that more than 12% has already been strictly protected.

Yet the PEG points out that much more needs to be done to protect the 1.4 billion acre boreal ecosystem. Among its recommendations is the need to protect the entire Mackenzie River watershed, which alone covers 20% of Canada’s land mass, and to complete the implementation of the Mackenzie Basin Agreement, which links land-use and water policies to preserve the watershed.

The report also warns of increased industrial pressures in the boreal forest, estimating that 728,000 km² (180 million acres) has been affected by the forestry, mining, oil and gas extraction, and hydropower sectors, and noting that major policy reforms are needed to conserve the forest’s vast water resources. These include reforms to both hydopower and mining policy. Provincial advances, such as Ontario’s new Mining Act, which aims to reduce mining’s environmental footprint and was passed with industry support, should be used as a model for other mining reforms, including those currently underway in British Columbia and Quebec.

PEG’s warnings highlight the ongoing challenge that policymakers and environmental groups face on a regular basis to avoid development in favor of conservation. But in certain dire situations, such pressures are difficult, and perhaps even immoral, to avoid.

The widespread and horrific damage caused by the earthquake and tsunami in Japan, for example, is a case in point. The natural disaster has washed away complete towns and infrastructure, including paper mills and other related businesses. With a devastating death toll (at time of writing) at almost 4,000, a missing toll at more than 15,000, and an estimated half a million people homeless and in temporary shelters where evacuees are surviving on little food and no water or elecriticity, the possibilities for public health problems are likely to increase, and raw materials will be urgently needed for temporary shelter. While those materials may come from China or Australia – despite damage done to Australian suppliers in Japan – news reports say will likely also come from Canada, which has strong relations with Japan, particularly in British Columbia. A report by Canada’s Globe and Mail says that Canadian and Japanese producers have been working together since the Kobe earthquake in 1995 on new products such as engineered wood that is designed to withstand greater earthquake impacts than cement, and that Canada will work to assist the Japanese with housing in both the short and long-term.

While it’s unclear what the Japanese demand will entail in the months ahead in terms of actual felled trees, there is one thing that we can be certain of in this time of crisis: the need for strong conservation in Canada’s boreal forest and the need for timber around the world – whether during periods of unusual crisis or on a more day-to-day basis – will continue their ongoing, challenging balance between serving humanity’s immediate and long-term needs.

Last week, Ontario announced new plans to offer rebates on the purchase of electric cars purchased after July 1^st 2010. The long term aim of the Ontario government is to have 1 in 20 cars by 2020 electric, as part of a move to encourage greener transport policies. The law would allow rebates of “$4,000 and $10,00” for hybrid and plug in electric cars – making the vehicle prices closer to normal car prices of around $30,000.

The move is the latest by Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty, who continues to lead his state on a remarkable path towards a more sustainable state, making Ontario a leader among states and provinces in North America. The move fits into a broader pattern of environmental legislation with an economic underpinning. One of Ontario’s most far-reaching laws included the “right to connect”, legislation that means any renewable energy supplier has to be hooked up to the main grid, in a push to encourage decentralised renewable energy growth in the state. Ontario does not see this simply as an environmental objective, with state legislators, aiming to push their province to the forefront of renewable technology in research and supply as the world slowly turns towards low carbon future. The latest push is not without some direct self-interest, as Ontario owns 3.9% of General motors, with it’s Chevy Volt due to come onto the market in 2010.

In keeping with their broader attempt to create a more holistic sustainable approach, the law also allows for electric cars to use High occupancy vehicle lanes even if only one person is driving in them. The report behind the new law also suggested an expansion of electric car provisions across the state. How effective the scheme will be naturally depends on Canada’s wider economic fortunes; nevertheless its the cumulative impact of Onatario’s legislation that makes the province a leader in environmental legislation.

Regardless of how quick the uptake is, the move is hardly without a rational basis, with Toyota set to prepare for mass production of the Prius in 2012, Honda and Nissan also in production of the electric car, it may not be unreasonable to suggest a tipping point in the electric car market. If the opportunity of a new market was not enough perhaps the more sinister implications of oil-shocks, may motivate those buying at the pump to save money by investing in ever more fuel-efficient vehicles. In either case, Ontario’s early provisions of plug-in stations will once again have put its citizens in a strong position to capitalise on changing markets through incremental legislation towards a sustainable state.

It rarely receives the same attention as the Amazon rain forest, one is being devastated by illegal

Deforestation (credit: energyportal.eu)

logging and development but the other, Canada’s Boreal forests also represents a key battleground against Climate Change. Set in the in the far north, not far below the arctic line, the Boreal forests are a huge band across Canada stretching from coast to coast, annually temperatures can go from 30C in the summer all the way down to -50C in the winter. Covering 2.9million km^2,, and representing 25% of the world’s un-developed forests the Boreal forests are a huge source of concern for conservationists and Scientists alike.

The Boreal is to carbon what Fort Knox is to gold.
These maps document where and how these vital reserves
– a virtual shield against global warming –
are distributed across Canada. We should do everything we can
to ensure that the carbon in these storehouses is not released.

Dr. Jeff Wells, Senior Scientist, International Boreal Conservation Campaign

From the point of view of Climate Change a truer statement could hardly have been made, because locked up in the Boreal forests are over 100 billion tonnes of Carbon, and they annually sequester 12.5m tonnes of Carbon each year making them a critical sink of Carbon but more importantly a source of Carbon that needs to remain locked in.

Their importance has for several years attracted strong concern from various environmental groups from their own Conservation group the IBCC to Green Peace and a number of similarly concerned conservation and environmental organisations. Many feel that the ever-rising demands from industries that rely on boreal forest resources could in the long-term threaten the Boreal Forests. However a turning point came in 2007 when 1,500 Scientists from over 50 countries signed a letter calling for conservation measures to be put into place.

Their concerns were not without merit. Canada’s natural resources, already a critical part of its economy are subject to ever rising demand. In particular logging, mining and energy development all place demands on the Boreal forest region. These demands are set to increase with the growing appetites of China and India for raw materials, putting greater pressure on provincial governments to open up more of the Boreal forests for development.

As if shouldering the burden of economic weight was not enough, natural phenomena have begin to take their toll on the Boreal forests, forest fires and Pine-beetles, already devastating in the US have taken their toll on Canadian forests. Pine beetles, able to spread through rising temperatures, destroyed 130,000 km² in Western Canada in 2008, as well as devastating parts of the US.

Forest fires, have been equally devastating, with perhaps the most concerning statistic being that in some years forest fires account for up to 45% of Canada’s GHG emissions, and large-scale forest fires have hardly been a scarce: 2002, 2003 and 2004.

Fortunately the importance is starting to sink in and rising awareness has prompted greater efforts to preserve, manage or sustainably develop the Boreal Forests.

Quebec Premier Jean Charest has promised to sustain 50% of its Northern forests from intensive development such as mining and 12% from any development at all. Quebec as in most has to walk the line between mining and logging mining, a multi-billion dollar industries for Canada.

Nevertheless, even Alberta, Canada’s oil state and home of the Tar-sands, has recognised the importance of preservation. The Alberta Research Council, working with the Pembina institute and Forestry leaders has formulated a policy to offset Alberta’s declining Boreal forests.

However, the most groundbreaking effort comes from Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty, no stranger to bold environmental legislation (he recently proposed the Green Energy Act) he has promised to preserve 50% of Ontario’s Boreal forests and the other half subject to sustainable development regulation. This amounts to 225,000 km² of land where even hunting and fishing will be severely curtailed and other development completely banned.

Of equal importance, is the emphasis on sustainable development for the other 50%. As this article, makes clear up to 24,000 people live in the Boreal forested part of Ontario many of them first nations people and Metis communities. McGuinty has pledged to allow sustainable development with them, including reforming mining, to make it more sustainable. While the plan is estimated to take 10-15 years before its fully realised, like the Green Energy Act, Ontario has become an uncompromising trendsetter in its dedication to environmental pursuits.

The Boreal forests, might not have the attention of the Amazon, and are often second in environmentalists demands, in the place of renewable energy or fighting the tar sands but they represent a key battle that should never be far from campaigners eyes. Much of the above legislation is a start in the right direction, but how durable conservation efforts will prove, in the face of rising global demand for raw materials and the economic benefits to Canadian provinces and even local communities will prove a much greater test in the years ahead.

Everyone has groaned in this recession, and with good reason, but on the political front environmentalists groaned a little harder. 2008  seemed a good year as Governments began to cast their eyes towards more comprehensive policy approaches to tackling Climate Change. But green dreams received a shock to the system as the recession hit and political capital for environmental projects dropped as fast (and not surprisingly) as the stock markets.

To some, the decline in enthusiasm was not unreasonable, governments are judged on short time frames between elections and restoring economic growth as easily and risk-free as possible is always going to take precedent over potentially expensive policy initiatives on Climate change. Canada’s Environment minister Jim Prentice confirmed as much when he said the Government would not pursue environmental policy to the detriment of the economy. But in Ontario, there is a bold exception to this pattern, Ontario has announced not merely that it will fight the recession (as everyone is doing), or that it will include some green measures (as some are doing) but that in the Green Energy Act, it will fight the recession by putting environmental measures as the solution, not an added bonus, not a burden.

Everything about this act is remarkable, but let’s start with its timing; the bill, currently in process, was proposed on 28^th February, the heart of the recession. The brainchild of Ontario’s Premier Dalton McGuinty and Deputy Premier George Smitherman the bill has a threefold purpose:

1. To arrest rising unemployment in Ontario by creating 50,000 “green” jobs within three years

2. A large scale effort to stimulate the renewable energy industry

3. To implement conservation and energy savings measures across Ontario.

Although the bill uses many of the usual approaches, certain aspects mark it out as exceptional, other than its timing. A core strength of the bill, is its comprehensive approach, rather than pass a number of small policy initiatives  to tackle certain environmental issues sector by sector, the Green Energy Act is a head on approach. Take for example conservation: the bill would require mandatory energy audits of properties and conservation targets for utility companies – and conservation is only one part of the bill.

The holistic approach has advantages over the smaller one, while introducing change at a greater rate gives the economy less time to adjust, it also underscores the Ontario Government’s resolve to make the environment a core part of the Ontario;s future economy, providing a clear vision of the future will be vital to encourage investment.

This is powerfully underlined in the most radical part of the bill, the “right to connect”, which would make it mandatory for utilities companies to connect to the grid, renewable energy projects ( subject to economic and technical requirements).

As George Vegh, a Toronto energy lawyer, writes:

“The most important thing about the Green Energy Act is that it is not about energy as a supply resource; it is about energy as a contributor to environmental and social outcomes”

This is embodied in the “right to connect”, this framed in deliberate terms to underlines the potential for the individuals to participate, it could precipitate a paradigm shift in the way Governments approach energy in the 21^st century, favouring decentralised grids, even at the likely at least in the short term higher energy costs, from the expense of expanding and presumably upgrading the grid, to the loss of economy of scale power supplies.

The bill would also entail greater regulation in the demand for conservation measure, while not all targets will necessarily be mandatory, the bill’s demand for wide-reaching regulation would see direct intervention of the Government in key markets such as property and the growing shift in values that underline public policy that increasingly see energy issues as public values.

The bill unsurprisingly is not without its critics, Terence Corcoran, provides a vociferous overview of its implications. Regardless of whether you agree with him, Corcoran underlines some salient details about this bill. Some of the important aspects are whether strong decentralisation of power utilities are desirable or whether they will be harder to regulate their upkeep and maintenance, more prone to regional weather variations could make them less efficient. Most importantly is that energy costs will significantly rise, from connection to grid costs, potential instability in renewable markets, such as steel shortages to weather problems creating downturns in electricity, backups will probably be required. Explaining Ontario’s decision to press ahead with a nuclear power plant. Whether the added regulation is the best way to promote energy conservation and to what extent economic growth is truly compatible with environmental policy.

While these remain key issues, nothing should detract from this bill it is a landmark in legislation, and a further example of the capacity of State legislation to tackle Climate Change at a serious level. It should not be forgotten, Ontario has already targeted a 15% reduction in GHG emissions by 2020, the phasing out of coal by 2014 and in 2008 already sources 25% of its energy from renewable sources . It is perhaps another reminder of Prime Minister Harper’s failure to address Climate change on a national level, that has led to a slew of state initiatives, of which Ontario is a leader.