The Globe & Mail has an interesting piece today about Canada’s boreal, one of the last great intact forests on Earth.

The boreal forest occupies nearly half of Canada’s land mass, yet it’s more significant to national myth and memory - as home to the coureurs de bois and the hewers of wood - than it is to any discussion of a shared future. But the blanket of woodlands that runs all the way from Yukon to the coast of Labrador may play a huge role in the battle to protect the planet from climate change. As one of the last great intact forests on Earth, along with the Russian taiga and the Amazon rain forest, the boreal is considered one of the world’s largest carbon storage systems. The trees and soil of Canada’s northern forest form a critical shield against global warming, storing a volume of carbon equal to 27 times the world’s annual greenhouse-gas emissions.

It continues here.