About Canada's Boreal

Northwest Territories

Northwest Territories’ Boreal Forest:

• is approximately 950,000 km2 (235 million acres) in size – more than three times the size of the United Kingdom.1
• comprises 17% of Canada’s Boreal Forest.
• is home to more than 25 aboriginal communities.2
• stores 40 billion tonnes of carbon in its soils, peat and forests – an amount equivalent to 200 years of Canada’s annual carbon emissions.3
• contains the Mackenzie River Basin, which comprises 20% of Canada’s landmass and is the 2nd-largest primary watershed in North America. It includes the Mackenzie River, Canada’s longest river and the fifth-longest in the world, and is home to several of Canada’s largest lakes including Great Slave Lake and Great Bear Lake (7th-largest in the world). The Mackenzie River supports large-scale anadromous fish migrations, including those of Arctic cisco that travel from the Mackenzie Delta at the Arctic Ocean several thousand kilometers upriver to the Liard River.4
• is the breeding ground for 150 to 500 million birds of more than 200 bird species, including White-winged Scoter, Whooping Crane, Short-billed Dowitcher, Blackpoll Warbler and Rusty Blackbird.
• supports over 6,000, or 17%, of Canada’s threatened boreal Woodland caribou and 100,000 Barren ground caribou, as well as large populations of wolves, bear and other wildlife.56
• features 834,000 km2 (206 million acres) of intact forest, peatland and wetland habitat free from industrial development, making up 87% of the province’s boreal region.7

 

1. Canadian Boreal Initiative. 2003. Canada’s Boreal Region.
2. Aboriginal Canada Portal (www.aboriginalcanada.gc.ca) and Global Forest Watch.
3. Tarnocai, C. and Lacelle, B. 1996. Soil Organic Carbon Digital Database of Canada. Eastern Cereal and Oilseed Research Center, Research Branch, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, Ottawa, Canada.
4. Benke, A., and Cushing, C. Rivers of North America. 2005.
5. Environment Canada. 2008. Scientific Review for the Identification of Critical Habitat for Woodland Caribou (Rangifer tarandus caribou), Boreal Population, in Canada. August 2008.
6. The CircumArtic Rangifer Monitoring & Assessment Network. Accessed August, 2009. www.carmanetwork.com
7. Global Forest Watch Canada. 2009. Canada’s Forest Landscape Fragments: A Second Approximation.