Report Finds Canada Leading World in Forest Decline

This article was last updated on April 16, 2022

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A recent report has found that the world’s virgin forests are degrading at an increasing rate and the largest portion of the deforestation is taking place in Canada. It was found that Canada has even surpassed Brazil, which was previously considered the main guilty-party in the struggle to stop forest destruction.

During an interview, Peter Lee from Forest Watch Canada, mentioned that “Canada is the number one in the world for the total area of the loss of intact forest landscapes since 2000.” Lee highlighted that primary reasons for destruction are fires, logging and energy and industrial development. It was stressed that “there is no political will at federal or provincial levels for conserving primary forests.” Lee alleged that “most logging done in Canada is still to this day done in virgin forests.” Scientists from the University of Maryland, Greenpeace, Global Forest Watch and the World Resources Institute are tracking the changes in the earth’s forest coverage.

Director of the forest program at the World Resources Institute, Dr. Nigel Sizer, highlighted that if the current rate of degradation continues, which is about 8.1 per cent of global undisturbed forests, “business as usual will lead to destruction of most remaining intact forests this century.” Scientists used computer aid, based on satellite imagery, to highlight huge degradation of Canada’s boreal forest from the Maritimes to Alberta with little compensatory gain. The boreal forests of Quebec, Ontario, Saskatchewan and Alberta were found to have been hit particularly hard by wild fires and resource exploitation.