CPAWS Asks Premier Doer to “Make Forests Count” at Global Climate Change Summit

The Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society is asking Premier Doer to “Make Forests Count” at the Governors’ Global Climate Summit 2, On the Road to Copenhagen, which continues today and tomorrow in Los Angeles. To date, the Manitoba government has left protection of the Boreal Region’s carbon stores out of its Climate Change Strategy. As the Boreal’s forests and wetlands are the largest terrestrial storehouse of carbon on the planet, it’s shocking the province has yet to include large-scale Boreal protection from industrial developments as part of its Climate Strategy.  Canada’s Boreal stores more than 186 billion tons of carbon – 27 years’ worth of global carbon emissions from the burning of fossil fuels! But when the Boreal Forest is developed or logged, its ability to absorb and store carbon is lost or reduced, which degrades its ability to help moderate our climate.