The Canadian Forest Service of Natural Resources Canada monitors deforestation to meet international climate change reporting requirements.

Area deforested for recreational
usage (golf course) in
Southern Ontario.
(Don Leckie, NRCan)

Annual deforestation rates are estimated using a combination of satellite and aerial images, land-use records, and field inspections. The results show that although there is some deforestation in Canada, most is driven by sectors of the economy other than forestry, such as agriculture and urban development.

What is deforestation?

Deforestation is the permanent removal of forest cover from an area, and the conversion of this previously forested land to other uses. In Canada, clearcutting or other harvesting practices are used as part of sustainable forest management to provide timber for producing paper or wood products. This is not considered deforestation because the area is replanted or allowed to regenerate naturally, renewing the forest cover.

How much deforestation occurs in Canada?

Canada’s 402 million ha of forest and other wooded land account for about 10% of the world’s forest cover. In 2005, an estimated 56 000 ha were deforested in Canada. Over the past 30 years, except for large hydroelectric projects in the late 1970s and early 1980s, annual deforestation rates have been decreasing. Overall, deforestation affected less than 0.02% of Canada’s forests in 2005.  A portion of this deforestation is offset by increases in forest area due to afforestation (planting of new areas of forest), estimated at 9400 ha in 2005.

Globally, about 13 million ha of forest are deforested each year—the area of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick combined. Therefore deforestation in Canada represents only approximately 0.4% of global deforestation, far less than Canada’s 10% share of the world’s forests. Around the world, deforestation is a major issue because it reduces biodiversity, affects water and soil quality, and is an important contributor to climate change. Although the rate of deforestation in Canada is quite low, it still makes sense to try and reduce it where possible.

What activities cause deforestation?

The agriculture sector accounted for just over half of the deforestation in 2005 (see chart), the result of forests having been cleared for pasture or crops. The remainder was caused by urban development, transportation corridors, and recreation (19%); hydroelectric development (10%); the forest sector (10%); and other natural resource extraction industries (8%). About two-thirds of this deforestation occurred in Canada’s boreal forest, mainly in areas in Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba where the forest borders the Prairies.

Causes of deforestation in Canada for 2005

How can we reduce deforestation in Canada?

Area deforested for agricultural
purposes near Quyon, Quebec.
(Roberta Gal, NRCan)

Deforestation in Canada is driven by demand for resource development, economic growth, and the need to build infrastructure.  Efforts to reduce deforestation must therefore be balanced against other goals, such as expanding the economy, diversifying economic activities, and supporting community employment.

As a result, finding solutions to reduce deforestation is challenging. There is a range of government policies and regulations that affect development, and these vary by sector and jurisdiction. Policies and regulations generally deal with other environmental, safety, or economic issues—not deforestation. A further challenge is the lack of public awareness about deforestation. Governments and the public have only recently begun to focus on this issue.

Because of increasing awareness, governments and industry are trying to better understand and reduce deforestation in Canada.  Recognizing that we need a more comprehensive approach, provincial governments are increasingly using innovative practices such as integrated landscape management (ILM).  Integrated landscape management means planning land uses over an entire landscape and encouraging different land users to work together.  For instance, ILM has been used in Alberta to coordinate forest clearing with oil sands development, to ensure forest companies harvest timber from sites to be cleared for oil and gas, and to prevent forest clearing for oil and gas development in newly replanted areas.  British Columbia has also used ILM to encourage the various industries operating in forests to share roads rather than each building its own.

References

Environment Canada. 2007. National Inventory Report, 1990–2005. Greenhouse Gas Sources and Sinks in Canada. [Accessed January 2008.]

Global Forest Resources Assessment. 2005. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. Rome. [Accessed January 2008.]

[IPCC] Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. 2007. Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Fourth Assessment Report of the IPCC. S. Solomon, M. Manning, Z. Chen, M. Marquis, K.B. Averyt, M. Tignor, and H.L. Miller (eds.).  Cambridge University Press, UK. [Accessed January 2008.]

For more information

E-mail: cfs-scf@nrcan.gc.ca
Forest Research, Climate Change