Canadian Forest Service Publications
Industrial Innovation and Infrastructure as a driver of change in Canada's boreal zone. 2019. Musetta-Lambert, J.; Enanga, E.; Teichert, S.; Creed, I.; Kidd, K.; Kreutzweiser, D.; Sibley, P. Environmental Reviews: dx.doi.org/10.1139/er-2018-0056.
Year: 2019
Issued by: Great Lakes Forestry Centre
Catalog ID: 39776
Language: English
Availability: PDF (request by e-mail)
Available from the Journal's Web site. †
DOI: 10.1139/er-2018-0056
† This site may require a fee
Plain Language Summary
This is one of a series of papers dealing with a scenario analysis and risk management for natural development in Canada’s boreal zone. The work was conducted under an NSERC-supported Boreal 2050 Project in which NRCan/CFS was a key player. The Boreal 2050 project builds on the recent Natural Resources Canada reviews of the state of the Boreal zone published in Environmental Reviews. One of the major outcomes of this special issue was the recognition that a framework to predict cumulative effects of natural resource extraction activities that explicitly incorporates uncertainty associated with climate change is needed. The Boreal 2050 project addresses this need. The Boreal 2050 project defines cumulative effects as the risk of failing to achieve the policy objectives of sustainably managing resources in the Boreal zone, and through internationally credible tools we evaluate the risk of cumulative effects to the boreal ecosystem. This paper focuses on industrial innovation and infrastructure as drivers of change in the boreal. We review evidence that these drivers do in fact influence industrial development and therefore ecosystem state, then pose future scenarios in which environmental-based innovations increase, decrease, and stay the same. This serves as a precursor to a risk management analysis for the boreal in which this driver will be included.
