Most of Canada’s largest forestry companies announced a groundbreaking deal with environmental groups on Tuesday that will restrict logging in the country’s vast northern forests.
The agreement covers 170 million acres — an area nearly twice the size of Germany — and ends years of battles over logging in Canada’s massive boreal forest, which environmentalists say plays an major role in fighting global warming by absorbing large amounts of carbon dioxide.
The forestry companies will stop all logging immediately on 75 million acres to protect woodland caribou herds under pressure from development. The two sides will then spend three years working out which restrictions to impose on logging in the remaining 95 million acres.
In return, as the agreement comes into force, the green groups will end international “Do not buy” campaigns against Canadian lumber.
The U.S.-based Pew Environment Group, which brokered the deal, said it was the largest commercial forest conservation agreement ever concluded…
“This will translate into market advantage for participating companies. We think this is a radically pragmatic agreement that will have significant ripple effects worldwide for forest products’ environmental standards.”
Kudos to both sides and especially Pew for assuming the activist role brokering the negotiations.
#20. a Bornean orangutan, would like a quiet word with you about that.
What’s going on here? First, the subhead on the story in last Sunday’s paper about Britain’s new coalition government reads “Spirit of compromise takes nation by surprise” and now this? What’s up? Is there a “reasonable” virus going around? If so, how can I help spread it?
#20 – Lou,
A funny thing happens when you cut a tree down. The sun gets down to the soil and a new tree grows. It’s been happening for a long time now. Get over it.
A funny thing happens when you cut down all of the trees in the forest. Most of the soil erodes. The trees decompose a lot faster, releasing carbon dioxide instead of sequestering it. The soil also releases CO2. In temperate locals, over 99% of the carbon sequestered in an old growth forest is actually locked up in the soil. So, eroding the soil releases more tonnage of CO2 than burning all of the trees would. Oh, and when the soil erodes, it gets washed out into the ocean forming hypoxic dead zones that are increasing world wide.
Oh, and getting that forest back after it has been clear cut takes hundreds of years, in the best case scenario.
(Oops, that should read temperate locales, of course, not locals.)
More importantly though, I forgot to mention that your tree regrowth, in order to be sustainable, actually requires leaving the tree there to decay.
Re: #19, Deowll, I thought my sarcasm was obvious. It’s impossible to have an effective campaign against the oil of one oil company. It pretty much gets mixed into the general pot of oil.
I’ve said this for years — if you’re not an environmentalist, you’re not a true conservative.
Well said GregAllen